Platforms will be happy to run bots they can portray as real humans to bolster engagement, make spaces seem popular and dynamic, trick advertisers and investors

Platforms will be happy to run bots they can portray as real humans to bolster engagement, make spaces seem popular and dynamic, trick advertisers and investors, etc. Similarly, if it costs basically nothing to work your way into communities to astroturf with bots, it'll happen. You don't have to post about great sites to get free Viagra right away, you can build reputation and subtly astroturf. And you can use additional bots to build/portray consensus. Reddit is already a problem because of actual humans doing the latter. It'll just get worse when it's automated further.