We're not alone in cyberspace.

As you read these words, thousands of nonhuman entities are also using the Web, harvesting text, submitting search queries, even posing as people. They carry out their missions without a hint of compassion--which sounds bad unless they happen to be on a mission for you.

They are bots (short for "software robots"), software programs that run all by themselves on the Web, sifting through data and making their own decisions. In many ways, they hold the key to making the Web a more valuable tool.

Once the technical toys of hackers and computer-science grad students, bots are going mainstream. Today you can use a personal spider bot to perform Web searches right from your desktop, order a shop bot to go comparison shopping for you, or have a conversation with a bot who can understand your language and answer your questions.

The idea is to develop virtual servants who can perform routine online tasks for you, saving time, potentially saving money, and generally making the benefits of the Web more accessible. "People don't want to have to manage the complexity that exists on the Web," says Alper Caglayan, coauthor of Agent Sourcebook, a book about bots and their cousins, agents. "They want someone else to do it for them. Technologies that can do this well, by anticipating your needs rather than you having to tell them, will be very popular."

While the notion of having bots do everything for us is still the stuff of science fiction, today's bots are truly helpful. Read on to learn how bots work (be sure to play with our interactive illustrations to get the full effect), and how you can make them work for you, today.

Go to "Spiders on your desktop"