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?