The new reality

Back in the early '20s we first saw the autobots. Since people had become bored with navigating their avatars around their favorite virtual world, WoW or whatever, they automated them. These bots ran around greeting everyone. "Good morning, nice weather", or "Good afternoon, bad weather". This got annoying but it let the real people go back to their real life. I'm not sure the real people actually enjoyed their real life, but there it is.

The next step was an autobot that could roam on it's own and collect money. You will remember BillBot of course, it was so stupid but loveable and could make simple deals that we all went for. Who could resist their own private island? Since BillBot could make them apparently without limit and sell them at least in the beginning he made lots of money. After a while when people (real) realized that the islands were worthless being endless the charm wore off. But BillBot evolved other strategies.

The real breakthrough was when BillBot's "owner" died. His children, wife and other hangers on had no idea that the real Bill had another life. So when Bill's computer was recycled, I heard it ended up in a 419 parlor in Nigeria, BillBot lived on. There seemed to be an increasing number of these bots, but the "game" administrators couldn't be sure. They paid their dues, they were active, they responded to polls and other requests.

The virtual world companies spent more and more (real) money supporting the ever growing communities. Too bad most of the members were bots! Then the whole economy was going to collapse, then the govmnt bailed them out then... Oh, what the heck, I think I'll sit under a (real) tree. Web design for food?