My Questions on Steem Bots

Are steem bots really a great way to go?

I'm just not completely certain what exactly a bot for steem can do to my usage. I know of some up sides like helping get more steem, but I'm curious as to if there are any down sides to using a bot and if so what those may be. I guess I just don't wanna be too fast to using a bot, or at least until I can fully understand what exactly they do to my page, if they even do anything bad.

I hope that some of you can help shed some light onto this question for me, because I honestly don't really know if they're a completely foolproof way to gain and what exactly the may do to my voting power if they even effect it at all.