Reddit actively encouraged bots and automation during the original r/place: https://www.redditinc.com/blog/how-we-built-rplace/
The API should be generally open and transparent so the reddit community can build on it (bots, extensions, data collection, external visualizations, etc) if they choose to do so.
Reddit actively encouraged bots and automation during the original r/place:
https://www.redditinc.com/blog/how-we-built-rplace/