I have been trading with an auto trader recently that is legitimately generating .5% per day. Not mining, just a software trading bitcoin vs. other alt. coins on auto pilot. Message for details.
Bots are no longer suitable for trading it will end all your profits to nothing one day. The best trade bot is your brain. I have tried a lot of bots before and I can guarantee - it is not profitable as your brain.
I'll second that. Just if people aren't capable of differentiating a point-five percent from five percent then traiding on crutches might be a better fit along that grey mass between their ears.
There is at least one bot on market that is capable of sending you the right attention signals like SMA & EMA crossings or any RSI reaching above 80 or below 20. A manual trader can use those to do only some (but the right!) trades.
Remember you are paying fees now, even if located in china. Trading on a high frequency means paying fees on a high frequency, which tend to sum up. Example Bittrex 0.25% on EACH trade. Pay that twice a day, for opening up your position and for closing again that results into 0.5% fees paid to Bittrex. Voila, there your revenue has gone away from you!
Once we get artificial intelligence that can decide upon setting Trailing Stop Loss orders or Take Profit with just the necessary leverage machines could be back into the game again. At the current state of technology we can use them to make a "dead coin" looking alive again, for a small amount of BTCs paid to the exchange site owner. Many altcoin developers are depending on this.