BCM206: D.A Development

My short story highlighted the value of social media in promoting free speech and collaboration. Our project aims to rejuvenate the BCM Digital Media Society, an online student-tutor community previously active on Twitter/X. This update covers my progress, including the development of an OpenAI Twitter Bot, an AI training website and threats to sustainability due to OpenAI costs.

No Members in Your Community? Make Your Own!

Today, objects are designed to emotionally and aesthetically engage users. A.I, with its vast potential, is pivotal. The goal wasn't just to harness A.I's computational power but to shape it into a sociable object that resonates with students. Since the beginning of the project, I've witnessed users interact with the bot like its a fellow human. Even though the bot displays a badge which notes its automation.

I utilised OpenAI's APIs, aiming for an A.I that communicates humanly, marked by expressive language and emotional connection. My creation, the BCM Bot, wasn't just for UOW + BCM course answers; it needed to be lively, enjoyable, and enticing if we wanted people to re-join X. Each comment and reply was fed into a database of acceptable responses. As feedback shaped it, the bot evolved into a captivating sociable object that students found relatable. The BCM Bot's journey emphasised the importance and potential of sociable digital objects, especially in an education environment. Seeing students engage with the bot as they would with peers showcases its informal charm and the utility of integrating sociable objects.

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BCMBot was inspired by a popular Twitter Bot 'Explain This Bob', which was suspended by Elon Musk earlier this year. A similar bot, 'Explain This God', uses OpenAI to reference a knowledge database and create replies to tweets with Bible quotes.

Maintaining Relevancy

Now armed with a fancy new bot, it was essential to keep it updated with relevant university data. Today's digital landscape has evolved, with online platforms transforming into spaces of shared beliefs, resembling digital 'churches'. If the bot's data was outdated or incorrect, misinformation could spread quickly. For the bot to gain traction among BCM staff, it was crucial they understood its data sources and could modify it. This mirrors the community practices seen in online tribes. Many BCM students and tutors began interacting with the bot, turning data sharing into communal rituals, forming a small community around the BCM Bot. To better facilitate this sharing of knowledge from BCM staff and students, I created a web app using Glide and linked to the bot's database, serving as a hub for staff and students to enrich its knowledge.

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Inspired by Google Drive, I aimed for my webapp to simplify interaction with raw databases, improving overall accessibility. Soon, unique contributions, including Gen Z slang and personality quirks began to appear.

These contributions, much like online tribal practices, created a shared identity. I have noticed that a 'human-like' AI, with personality traits, seems to better connect with users. I aim to expand the bots' backstory and 'lore', and explore how they can foster community by mirroring and exploiting the community-building power of digital platforms.

Artificial Intelligence Is Expensive

In a previous BCM112 D.A, I built an OpenAI-powered Spotify Playlist Generator. However, unlike that project, this bot brought forth the challenge of adding a payment method and buying 'tokens'. The natural world is an intricate dance of sustainability and adaptation, and I faced a similar challenge with the OpenAI APIs. While they offered free credit initially, sustaining the bot required additional investments. Each generation posed a cost of around 0.047-0.093 AUD, and with the bot's increasing activity, the projected monthly cost was looming at around $20.00. How could the bot, like an organic entity, adapt and sustain itself in this environment? Taking a leaf from biomorphic design, which often looks to nature for solutions, I explored alternative models. Initially, the bot was powered by text-davinci-003. However, recognising the need for adaptability, I began to experiment with gpt-3.5-turbo. This newer model, not only being cost-effective at around $0.007/generation but also promised efficiency. My trials with gpt-3.5-turbo on a new discord bot seemed promising. The generated responses were consistent, indicating that this model might be the sustainable solution I was seeking, much like how nature finds its way to adapt and thrive.

Next Steps

Creating the BCM Bot underscored the immense potential of sociable digital objects in fostering engagement within our community building project. The evolution and adaptability of the bot, driven by feedback and the pressing need for sustainability, have shown that blending advanced A.I. with human-like traits can resonate deeply with users. As I head into the next iteration, I plan to publicly release the BCM Bot on Discord in the DMS & BCM206 servers, to begin testing. Also looking at the personality development of the bot, making it relatable for students. Additionally, I will explore the cultural effects of the bot's "lore", emphasising how digital narratives can foster community engagement.