But secondly and more importantly, even if what you say is true, the theory is still total nonsense!

Where is the evidence for any of this? Where are the networks of bots that were caught spamming low-intelligence identically worded political comments, yet somehow can't be caught by normal spam filters? Where is the testimony of millions of people who decide how to vote by counting duplicate tweets?

This entire theory is literally a conspiracy theory. Like all conspiracy theories, when basic questions are asked it suddenly shapeshifts and starts to claim something different but still wrong.

I don't believe any such bots exist: can anyone show me the evidence that they do? I mean real, first-hand evidence, not assertions of dubious self-proclaimed experts with an agenda.

I can for sure tell you that real humans are routinely labelled as "bots" by people who believe in this conspiracy theory, and can cite evidence:

1. It's happened to me.

2. It's happened to other people:

https://sputniknews.com/europe/201804211063771932-Smeared-Ru...

That may have been the end of it, but then Ian took an invitation to appear on Sky News. The news anchors began by asking the man, who appeared on video remotely, whether he was truly a "Russian bot." "That is 100 percent a total lie and complete fabrication by the UK government," Ian said, with a British accent.

Here's a related case. In fairness, this time it's about "Russian trolls" not "Russian bots", although I've noticed people tend to use the terms interchangeably:

https://order-order.com/2017/11/15/byline-outs-russian-troll...

The Twitter account in question turned out to be a Scottish car park security guard.

Here's a third case of real people being accused of being political bots:

https://www.wired.com/story/how-americans-wound-up-on-twitte...

3. Any time any detail or basic question about this theory is raised, this is exactly what happens - someone pops up saying nobody is claiming the bots are genuinely artificially intelligent, or the claims are changed in other subtle ways. But yes, that's exactly what this very article is claiming:

"The first bots, short for chatbots, couldn’t hide their artificiality. When they were invented, back in the nineteen-sixties, they weren’t capable of manipulating their users. Most bot creators worked in university labs and didn’t conjure these programs to exploit the public. Today’s bots have been designed to achieve specific goals by appearing human and blending into the cacophony of online voices"

The justification for this law is literally that people think AGI has been achieved and is "manipulating" voters by spreading "false narratives". But it's not true, is it?