Discussion: How Can We Handle Botting Better?

[Lastelli]

And with the penalty being non-existent for any of those activities, botting, parses, or modding--it's hard to discourage people. Because at the absolute 'worst' end of the spectrum, we're talking about a 12 hour ban or something--right? No one knows, because it never happens.

There's no reason to discourage parses and modding since these don't affect other players. Botting, on the other hand, does affect other players when it's used to automatize crafting and gathering. But I think botting will not die if they don't rehash the whole gathering and crafting system and make it into something that actually requires the player's attention.
The problem is, SE has no way of knowing if a player is botting if the player is smart, so at this point there's not really much they can do other than making the content itself more enjoyable and not feel like a chore, which is the very reason why people bot in the first place.