"Poker Bots Invade Online Gambling"

This article from the New York Times by Gabriel Dance (March 13, 2011) describes the use of AI poker bots in online gambling. The bots apparently can win tens of thousands of dollars for the humans who deploy them. Professor Tuomas W. Sandholm of Carnegie Mellon University is quoted as saying that poker bots "can rival good players, but not the the best - yet."

Naturally the use of the poker bots is defended by some, condemned by others. Those of us who don't play poker online are safe from them. But then again:

The poker bots’ arrival may be just another sign of an emerging world where humans, knowingly or unknowingly, encounter robots on an everyday basis. People already talk with computers when they call customer service centers or drive their cars.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director