The Soft(ware Robot) Bulletin

So, I just downloaded something (never you mind) and it had one of those boxes where you type what you see written, and this ominous passage preceded it:

To help us distinguish between account infomation submitted by individuals and those automatically entered by software robots, please type the characters shown here into the box below.

"Software Robots?" WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY? Do they walk among us? Do they sit at computers all day trying to download things from the internet? Do they watch me while I change my clothes?

I guess my computer is a hardware robot, right? But my computer's not self-aware (yet). Are software robots self-aware? Are they like, "Hey, I think she'd like this picture-sharing program; I'll download it for her and enter all her information because I know her so well. In fact, I think I'll BECOME HER."

If my identity ever gets stolen by a software robot, I hope people don't like the new me better. I must say, though, the software robot-me would probably be smarter than regualr me. Definitely more self-aware.