Wiktionary
n. (context computing English) a bot that roams a distributive network (especially the Internet) to gather or distribute information
Wikipedia
A knowbot is a kind of bot that collects information by automatically gathering certain specified information from web sites.
KNOWBOT is the acronym for Knowledge-Based Object Technology. This term, used as early as 1988 and known to have been implemented by December 1989 at the latest describes computer-based objects developed for collecting and storing specific information, in order to use that information to accomplish a specific task, and to enable sharing that information with other objects or processes. An early use of knowbots was to provide a computerized assistant to users to complete redundant detailed tasks without a need to train the user in computer technology.
Usage examples of "knowbot".
The Renraku matrix retains nothing more than sophisticated analogs and knowbots, and Huang and Cliber are unable to duplicate their earlier apparent success.
I am to succeed, I have to get past the knowbots without letting them set off an alarm in the system.
Its knowbots return from a relict database with the curious fact that Ship had once possessed a fleet of such vessels, but this knowledge has fallen out of active memory and exists now, in fragments only, in unused bins.
But Ship spends the next aeon searching for the other shuttles and boats the knowbots have identified and, not finding them, sends out a general alert on its Net.