Steemit is both a microcosm and macrocosm of sociopathy with the 80/20% running close. For those without a scorecard, the 80% represents the parasites; the takers and the 20% the givers; the builders: the foundation for a viable community.

Without values and a vision it becomes a war of the bots. It is no longer science fiction; reality is upon us. Welcome to dystopia.

Good article, and I think I agree with your position.

Maybe bots should be able to declare themselves, or else be flagged as such by the community. Then people who don't like them can mute them (perhaps granting exceptions to ones they don't mind).

I'm sure there would be problems with doing this (like with everything), and I haven't given it too much thought yet.

This post is interesting!

Unfortunately the nature of steem is that it will always have a lot of bots, unless something is done to discourage it. I don't even know if it is even possible to do anything about it.

Bots are really just a reflection of the human behaviour behind their creators.

They can be spammers or exploiters that are gaming the system.  They can be purely for-profit or have benevolant intentions that help the community by doing helpful leg work like checking for plagairism or identifying undervalued posts.

At the end of the day I have no issue with automation.  Like any tool or technology, it is not good nor evil but it can be used for either and this discussion might be more about the bot-masters than anything else.

Who is pulling the strings?

haha, seems like we are already being overtaken

It could be a very lucrative business here if you are in control of 5 power bots, just going around curating and you come in and claim rewards, the tipping service bots is big business here and it is getting very competitive... you probably notice it has led to some competitors dropping prices to remain competitive...we see how this one unfolds, I myself taking a neutral stand, and won't be a hypocrite as I would love if those powerful voting bots visit my page....i guess the next evolution is finding a balance

My position you already know. It's in the comments screenshot above in your post. But it doesn't matter what we think. The whales are in charge here and they control these bots. They are here to earn and as easy as possible.

Some bots are fine but the ones which spam the posts regularly and needlessly should be stopped by flagging or something.

Bro, I'm so damn busy I can't keep up. I had a mini conversation with you on this before. I prefer to do everything organically. Even when I go hit up new minnows, I tend to type different comments and yes I actually read over them to see who the heck these people are because many times, they may not even speak English...Hmm...and now I have become sidetrack. I think I'm going to talk about the communication gap on Steemit in my next podcast and why it may be a good thing, or bad. Anyway thanks for sharing...Yeah...I don't give a hoot about the bots, I'm too busy already.

I don't mind bots at all or the purpose they serve, but I do mind them clogging up the comment threads as simple advertisements for said service. As you know, I believe comments is where community happens, and bots, while useful for some things, do nothing to enhance community.

Steemit has a  LOT more bots than Reddit, used both for good, and bad purposes. 

You say that 100,000 interactions on reddit is a lot...but Reddit is big. Very, **Very** big. 200+ million unique users. In 2015, it had 73 million posts, 700+ million comments, and 6.8 billion upvotes.(This is from wikipedia) 

So a 100,000 interactions is peanuts. It's nothing. By comparison, a 100,000 interactions on Steemit would be a LOT.

For the most part I'm not a fan. So many have huge messages with graphics. Cheetah & the original content bots seem good, but I kind of loathe the ones where people have paid to have their content upvoted regardless of the quality. 

Half the time on the site it feels as if I'm either scrolling through bot spam or reading articles that feel bot generated & it can get a little discouraging feeling my time being wasted for another person's profit.

@originalworks

We are looking for Bot Builders
http://shaivitetemple.org/Forum/topic/blockchain-bots-that-benefit-people/

Excellent high quality post and a very relevant topic.  It seems that if bots were somehow banned, that we would have a genuine community without manipulation.  We were introduced last week by jerry banfield to the games the top authors are playing to achieve their position and payouts.  I hate gaming of systems to benefit the few who are bent to grab more than they would have otherwise earned.  So if people can game this much, how much more will bots be able to game since they can work 24/7 and without much of a cost. My fear is the effect of manipulation wherever it comes from.  upvoted and resteemed.

They are coming :) I wrote an article on similar lines sometimes back : 

https://steemit.com/blog/@sanjeevm/termination-of-humans-machine-salvation-i-did-not-anticipate-it-to-happen-so-soon

Less bots, more human feedback imo:)