Are you guys just finding out about this? This theory, or at least theories on its level, have been popular for a while. This is why the NPC memes were so potent. The agree machines really are just like bots, but this becomes a chicken and egg problem pretty quickly. Essentially, the internet has been largely bots (mostly on the big mainstream sites) for probably a decade or more, once "internet sleuths" started getting good at it.