Google's John Mueller was asked if there is a difference between a human adding unnatural links on your web site compared to AI, algorithms doing it on their own. John responded that ultimately it is the responsibility of the site owner to make sure their site is clean no matter how the content or links get on it.
John said on Twitter "You're responsible for your own site, regardless if it's random internet users dropping links and writing text, or random algorithms doing that."
Here are the tweets:
You're responsible for your own site, regardless if it's random internet users dropping links and writing text, or random algorithms doing that.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) January 4, 2019
So even if you have algorithms and machines writing your content, if they are linking in an unnatural manner (can robots link naturally?) then you got a potential issue.
Either way - Google has said that even when someone spams your content, hacks your content, you are responsible to make sure your content is good and clean. So it doesn't matter if it is done illegally, without your knowledge, by a machine or a human - the ultimately responsibility with your site's content and links are yours.
Forum discussion at Twitter.