GalaxyKate

"Bot writers Darius Kazemi and Kate Compton talk about the bots that are writing poetry, dreaming up New York Times thinkpieces, and even helping activists stay motivated and educate their followers. They share what they think bots can do for Internet users, and why they suggest that more people try creating them."

""We've got a lot of humans in the world, and we don't particularly like them," Compton said. Why would we want to create a technology that just gives us a whole bunch more humans?"

"What do people use to get stuff done?"

"In our conversation, we talk about the power of failure, how bots can generate unhindered creativity, and the social capital gained through creating Twitter bots. As we indulge in speculations, Kate and I also talk about consensual sex bots, what it would mean to have shifting bot identities, and the hilarious ways that bots might be able to help us cope with the horrifying."

"Now, two doctoral students at UC Santa Cruz are programming a ruse on the cosmic scale: They've designed a game that tries to make astrophysics fun. Kate Compton and April Grow, both students at UCSC's Center for Games and Playable Media, hope players will feel like they're "farming" in space as they cultivate star gardens. In doing so, gamers also will learn about nucleosynthesis, the process by which stars forge atoms into the elements that make up the periodic table. But Stellar, which will be soon be available on Google's Chrome Store, is first and foremost a game -- and its programmers hope the approach will help spark children's interest in science."

"In just six months, 100 EA employees created 15,000 items, [Will Wright] told us. The designs of one of those employees in particular consistently caught my eye: GalaxyKate. One of Spore's most social features is the Sporecast: an RSS feed of sorts for another Spore player's creations that any player can subscribe to. Here, I was crawling through GalaxyKate's creations, both Will and myself marveling at some of the things she's built. My favorite: A building that looked like an ice-skating figurine, with snow-mound base and pirouette pose."

"June 5th, PhD student (completing her second year at UCSC), game maker and crafter, Kate Compton came on the radio to talk about her research and practice..."