I personally think bots are indeed a problem when they are designed to try and pass themselves off as accounts manned by real people. The problem is the attempted deception that actually probably works on just the most naive of us. I'm convinced that a great deal of the spammy "Cool post. I'm following you now, consider following back" comments are automated. It's just an activity that costs pretty much nothing to do when you are doing it on auto and there are always going to be a few people who would upvote the comment or indeed fallow the account back. This means that this activity gets rewarded. And if it provides a positive ROI for the perpetrators, they will scale it up. That's why talking about it helps as people learn that they shouldn't upvote thoughtless comments.

But in the end, this is mainly clutter and if people were using their better judgments, it wouldn't really be that big of a problem.

Still, you are absolutely right about this being a reality of life. No social media website in the world with any real user base is free of automated accounts, so it's illogical to expect that a platform as open and free to access as the steem blockchain wouldn't have them. It's obviously designed to easily accommodate account automation and when you have such a thing, it comes with both its pros and cons. The potential pros here on this platform actually outweigh the inevitable cons that would have existed even if the platform was designed to make life more difficult for bots as they would still be doing it in one way or another.

The matter of fact is that most people are on a cultural autopilot. What they consider unique about themselves is as unique as an orange on an orange tree.

LOL, so true and so well-said :D