Virtual Methods

Centring the Links • 101
the number of visitors actually increases markedly. When updates are infrequent
(that is, once every four months), it is not uncommon for visitors to lodge complaints
via email, or to be very pointed in their messages about broken links.
When repetitive work tasks become too sizeable and burdensome for the limits
of human labour, what would one normally expect to happen? Automation is one
possible consequence. In the case of the CAC, automation on a number of fronts,
attests silently to a history of broker overload. The presence of a page of frequently
asked (and answered) questions clearly shows that some questions have been
received in such volume and with such repetition that it became necessary to
develop stock replies. The other noteworthy feature of FAQs is that they can also
hint at a ‘user model’: by suggesting that these are the questions that have been frequently
asked, then we can come to at least an impressionistic overview of the
common denominator among the various interests of users, that is, the audience,
the constituency, or the consuming public of a web site. We thus have a rudimentary
profile not just of the clientele but also of the various pressures and demands
for information that have been exerted on the further revision and reconstruction
of a web site.
Automation can take on a much more graphic, to some even shocking, form.
The CAC is assisted in its question-and-answer tasks by ANACAONA, the
acronym for a robot that mirrors the name of a legendary Taino heroine from the
early colonial history of Hispaniola. ANACAONA stands for ‘Anything About
Caribbean Aboriginals from an Online Networked Assistant’, and it/she makes
its/her presence felt by a live talking face, with animated expressions and a voice
that is used to speak with visitors. The robot’s software is based on Dr Richard
Wallace’s Artificial Intelligence Markup Language (see Wallace n.d.), coupled
with the animation work of a company called Oddcast, the two technologies
bridged by yet another enterprise called Pandorabots. 3 In existence for a little over
a year at the time of writing, the results of this form of automation have been
mixed at best, distressing at worst. Most users find that ANACAONA either does
not have the information they desire (the robot requires training, which itself adds
to broker overload since, in the extreme, the robot may require a data volume
equalling that of a doctoral programme), or does not understand or answer their
questions (even the most minor typographic error causes it to ‘misunderstand’ or
stray into other subjects). From my own calculations, ANACAONA successfully
answered 80 per cent or more of questions on Amerindian issues posed in any one
conversation for less than 30 per cent of recorded conversations. In some cases the
robot actually possessed the knowledge but was ‘confused’ by grammar or
spelling, or its programmed ‘drive’ to ask its own questions.
What disturbed some visitors, causing one of the few rare instances of email
seething with anger and indignation to be directed against the editors of the CAC,
was the manner in which the robot’s acronym echoes the name of the historical