I think a bot posting content is no worse than a human posting comments in their own echo chamber. I see a lot of snootiness from HN, but HN is also heavily in decline due to certain political agendas preventing free discussion.
Imagine you live in a community that has half the houses painted yellow and half the houses painted blue. Suddenly you start seeing posted that all yellow houses should be painted blue. The HOA puts it up for a vote, and there are 5000 votes pro blue.... when there are only 250 houses in your neighborhood. I mean, if you lived that neighborhood you'd be up in arms about why the HOA didn't do the bare minimum about the situation.
This is the same for bot content. Suddenly the views of one person out number everyone else...
"You should be mad! You should be really mad all the time. Look, there are thousands of people that are really mad, and if you're not mad you're the dumb minority that's not paying attention. Here are 1000 people that are all mad around you and doing something about it, you need to do something too. Yea, remember that 'real person' that talked to you on 'forum' and you got along with them, they are so totally mad!"
Until we give up on thinking 'internet people' are real, internet people will have a far higher impact on our lives than they should.
