Web Bot is an

internet bot An Internet bot, web robot, robot, or simply bot, is a software application that runs automated tasks ( scripts) on the Internet, usually with the intent to imitate human activity, such as messaging, on a large scale. An Internet bot plays the ...

computer program whose developers claim is able to predict future events by tracking keywords entered on the internet. It was developed in 1997, originally to predict trends of companies'

shares In financial markets, a share (sometimes referred to as stock or equity) is a unit of equity ownership in the capital stock of a corporation. It can refer to units of mutual funds, limited partnerships, and real estate investment trusts. Sha ...

publicly listed. The creator of the Web Bot Project, Clif High, along with his associate George Ure, keep the technology and

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of Rigour#Mathematics, mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algo ...

s largely secret and sell the predictions via the website.

Methodology

Internet bots An Internet bot, web robot, robot, or simply bot, is a software application that runs automated tasks ( scripts) on the Internet, usually with the intent to imitate human activity, such as messaging, on a large scale. An Internet bot plays the c ...

monitor news articles, blogs, forums, and other forms of Internet chatter. Words in the lexicon are assigned numeric values for emotional quantifiers such as duration, impact, immediacy, intensity, and others. The lexicon is dynamic, and changes according to shifts in emotional tension, and how humans communicate those changes using the Internet. As of 2008, there were about 300,000 keywords in the lexicon, along with emotional context, which are fed into a computer-generated modelspace. The operators of Web Bot interpret the bot's results and make a report called the "ALTA report" available on their website to paying subscribers. ALTA stands for "asymmetric language trend analysis". Many believe the predictions are

pseudoscientific Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable cl ...

and too vague to be meaningful. Despite this, the creators have made many claims after the fact that their reports have predicted important events.

Predictions

Claimed hits

* Northeast Blackout of 2003 *

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake On 26 December 2004, at 07:58:53 local time (UTC+07:00, UTC+7), a major earthquake with a magnitude of 9.2–9.3 struck with an epicenter, epicentre off the west coast of Aceh in northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The Submarine earthquake, undersea ...

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a powerful, devastating and historic tropical cyclone that caused 1,392 fatalities and damages estimated at $125 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area. ...

and its devastation

Misses

* The Web Bot gained most of its notoriety for contributing to the

2012 phenomenon The 2012 phenomenon was a range of eschatological beliefs that cataclysmic or transformative events would occur on or around 21 December 2012. This date was regarded as the end-date of a 5,126-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count ...

by predicting a cataclysm that would devastate the planet on 21 December 2012, possibly a reversing of Earth's magnetic poles or a small series of nuclear attacks leading up to a major attack during the year. The prediction did not call for a complete end of the world. * Web Bot predicted that a massive earthquake would occur in December 2008 in

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

, British Columbia, Canada and the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (PNW; ) is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common ...

, but no such event happened. * A prediction that the US dollar would completely collapse in 2011, and that

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

would bomb

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

, with the administration of U.S. President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

being thrown into major chaos.

Reception

The

History Channel History (formerly and commonly known as the History Channel) is an American pay television television broadcaster, network and the flagship channel of A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney General Entertainme ...

has discussed Web Bot in its special "Doomsday 2012: The End of Days" on season 3 of Decoding The Past and on other shows that feature predictions about the end of the world, such as the ''

Nostradamus Effect ''Nostradamus Effect'' is an American television series that premiered on September 9, 2009, on the History Channel. The program detailed various historical apocalyptic prophecies, such as the 2012 phenomenon. The show was named after reputed F ...

''. A ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...

'' journalist noted that: Tom Chivers in the ''

Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was foun ...

'' notes three criticisms of the project:

References