It runs autonomously to a degree, but a lot of these sites operate via posting a wide variety of content on the same domains, after those domains have previously gained status in search engines.

So for example, you’ll have a site like epiccoolcarnews[.]info hosting stuff like “How to get FREE GEMS in Clash of Clans” just because previously they posted an article about cars that Google thought was good so they ranked up the domain in their ranking algorithm.

Permanently downrank the domain, and eventually they have to start with a new domain that, as is the key part here, has no prior reputation, and thus has to work to actually get ranked up in search again.

They’re also going to be making this a public database, and have said they’ll use it to train AI-generated content detection tools that will probably be better at detecting “AI generated articles meant to appear legitimate by using common keywords and phrases”, rather than just “any text of any form that has been generated by AI” like other AI detection tools do, which would make them capable of automating the process a bit with regard to specifically search engines.