Oh No, This Startup Is Using AI Agents To Flood Reddit With Slop Marketing

The internet has become flooded with AI-generated content, and one of the few places where humans can still go to talk to other humans has been Reddit.

Unfortunately, a new marketing automation startup called Astral wants to change that and bring LinkedIn’s marketing slop to the discussion site. Startup founder Savannah Feder posted a video on X Thursday demonstrated how using AI agents in a browser window, their tool can navigate through Reddit and automatically write comments that promote what a marketer might be trying to sell.

As other agents of computer use recently demonstrated by the likes of Anthropogenic and GoogleAstral can take over a local browser and complete tasks by first capturing screenshots of a page and analyzing it with AI to figure out what to do next based on a prompt, finally sending commands to the mouse. “Look at how Astral finds the right places to click,” Feder says as the bot begins logging into Reddit. “It’s honestly really fascinating to see how you navigate the site like a human would.” The video goes on to show how the bot navigates to the /r/productmanagement subreddit, searches for posts about “user research,” and then “writes a response that promotes the product without sounding too sales-y.”

The dream for these bots is that they help grandma navigate her computer on her own, not create marketing automation spambots that flood social media. Of course, this must be why so many people show disdain for AI: it was implemented by the worst people they know.

Announce Astral – an AI marketer working 24/7 to grow your startup.

Astral navigates websites, creates content and manages social media marketing.

Watch Astral automate Reddit in real time: pic.twitter.com/XbpKt0lZqd

— Savannah (@SavannahFeder) January 9, 2025

This should be more evidence that AI is about to create a sea of ​​undifferentiated mediocrity, and bland content as far as the eye can see. Anyone who has spent enough time on LinkedIn or X has seen generic, soulless posts that are obviously written with AI, and now someone has enthusiastically built a tool to bring this to Reddit. Imagine being proud of that, like being proud to piss in someone’s pool.

What is perhaps most unfortunate is that the people who create tools like Astral really seem to believe that AI and humans are interchangeable, and that machine will be far better than humans can ever be.

Incredibly, after someone asked Feder why Astral uses an AI agent running in a local browser instead of a Reddit API, he explains that it’s because Reddit and other social media sites limit the use of their APIs for tasks automated. There’s a reason for that: Because it’s spammy and annoying. She also excitedly explained to another person that the bot can successfully crack CAPTCHAs.

Alexis Ohanian, a co-founder of Reddit, replied to the post with a GIF of Patrick from SpongeBob he starts to cry.

It will be interesting to see how platforms like Reddit implement anti-bot measures to combat the slop.