If the SIAI is unable to subdue unfriendly spam bots then the prospects to impede superhuman uFAI look bleak ;-)
Who says these spam bots are unfriendly? Maybe they have figured out that the best way to help us is to convince us to buy their awesome products!
Of course, if that's the case, they aren't exactly doing a good job of it...
I'm mean most of us would like a friendly bot to chat with, but this is just paperclipping the section (no offence clippy), by now its starting to be a real trivial inconvenience for me and it reduces my desire to check out new topics.