I actually been in this exact scenario before. I and another friend were avidly into Hearthstone, and another third person was playing with an Hearthstone Cheat bot in an University study room. We asked to watch for a while.

After a while, some dread was setting in. We started asking questions:

* Why did it hover that card?

"To pretend it's human. The card has less than 10% playrate on that class"

* Did it... just spam the Well Met meme while going face?

"Of course. Because people do it"

* Wait it ropes the opponents?

"Yes. You can set it to rope back"

We kept seeing more and more behaviors. It would squelch noisy opponents. It would even tap the ground pretending to be a bored person. And then it hit me: 95% of Hearthstone players are bots. Every single human behavior that you could perhaps use to identify 'people', it faked.

I quit Hearthstone within that week.

People looking for dates on Tinder.

Yes more than 70% of Tinder profiles are already probably bots at this time. The CEO said they had an AI strategy.

People will be more and more lonely.

It's hard for me to understand how Tinder is not dead yet. One big pile of pop-up ads (even when you pay you get upsell popups) and some Chinese scammer bots.

It's even more of a shame that OkCupid is dead. They had such a nice method, which was actually introducing good people to me.

I'd argue that what Match Group did with OKC was bordering on criminal. Everything on it worked and it worked for small, often marginalized groups. It was turned into a worse version of tender.

I met my wife through OKC, she's a lovely lady.

It's highly dependent on location. I use it while traveling, and yes in a few countries it's useless, but I've met 300-400 people over the last 7 years. It's added more value to my life than any other single app (even though I've never paid a dime for it).

For the record, I'm male, mid 30's, and average looking.

An average of 1 person per week over a period of 7 years? Impressive. Is it fair to assume you're using a relatively shallow definition of "value" here, or was there something else you had in mind?

> People will be more and more lonely.

Or people might be less lonely. There will come a point where the online experience becomes worthless and people will place greater importance on face-to-face interaction. That's how it was 20 years ago.

Why surrogates wouldn't be able to function as teledildonic proxies for 'intimacy'?

You'd be able to tell the difference.

Come on, how would you know the difference, if you'd grown up without ever have known the real thing?

To extrapolate the theme of that movie just a little bit further?

Why would you quit hearthstone over the presence of bots?

It's not like you have meaningful interactions with the other players anyway (beyond the occasional post-game friend request which has a 50/50 chance to be abusive).

(Honest question, I'm not arguing you're wrong)

If you are just playing against bots, the challenge is arbitrary. What would top 10% actually mean? 5000 ELO? Albeit, the ranks are slightly arbitrary already as the matchmaking algorithm significantly influences your competitive experience. But you know when you get higher rank, you have proven you are better than increasing amounts of real players. If every person was actually playing a single player variant of the game (matched against bots), the reward for climbing the ranked ladder is significantly diminished.

In multiplayer games much of the fun in winning is someone else losing.

> I quit Hearthstone within that week.

So it had positive effect in the end. I wish I had something like this that would stop me use any social media.

> Every single human behavior that you could perhaps use to identify 'people', it faked.

Except, you know, actually playing the game well. The bots all play aggro decks and get lower than average winrates.

> I quit Hearthstone within that week.

Why? Their presence makes climbing the ladder easier, so you get more rewards.

Well, very soon you can quit the Internet LOL

Well unlike with modern multiplayer games where the matchmaking algorithm decides who you play with, on the Internet you can still choose what websites to visit.