You don't sound like a bot; a bot is basically computer code that automatically performs task for the codes owner.
Whales are considered the people with the top 1% of the accounts on steem-although I am not sure where the cut off is. There is a big world of difference between a new user who might have half a steem power, and someone who might have hundreds of thousands or even millions-and is why their upvotes are so powerful.
consider what an upvote from steemit is worth http://steemdollar.com/dollar_per_vote.php?name=steemit , almost $3700 each as of this writing.
Whales can be live people, they could be people sitting on steem as an investment, or they could use computer code to do their upvotes and restreems or offer other services. Some may mine steem, but i am not sure what that really means.