I think AI controlled characters in games that are there ‘by design’ i.e.: not bots used by players meaning to cheat are a net good. AI NPCs seems like the perfect use for AI, particularly in RPGs. Having an NPC that can ‘intelligently’ respond to changes in the game world caused by the player would be pretty cool if done well.

And yes, Wilhelm, you are absolutely right: there are already ‘third party’ bots on all social media platforms lying to us for engagement reasons. The big problem with the media companies themselves rolling out their own ‘fake’ humans is that they have access to all the internal user data in real time.

It is kind of like the difference between human trading and machine trading on the stock market: the inhumanly rapid response to user metrics could… would cause a multiplying factor on all the worst elements of the engagement cycle.