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Frustrated or skeptical passersby have kicked the bots or intentionally obstructed their path, while the cities of New York and San Francisco have banned them, on and off, because of congestion concerns.

Indians bombarded Grok with everything – cricket gossip, political rants, Bollywood drama – and the bot took it all on, unapologetically and with some style.

The Electric State follows Brown, Pratt and a succession of zany robots in an alternative version of 1990s America, where there has been a war between humans and intelligent bots.

Although the posts might appear to be genuine public opinion, in fact it's a faked crowd – whether that's made up of bots or real people, who can be paid to coordinate their posts.

He adds that "hundreds" of such bots would need to harvest the seabed at a time, bringing the spoils to a ship on the surface.