it's simply realizing/acting on market information at a faster pace than humans could mechanically, I don't see how that distorts markets. If anything it makes markets more efficient because it adjusts prices to information faster. Yes it makes human traders less able to make money but I don't see why that is actually bad for the market.

If it were inefficient, unless the algo traders were putting arbitrarily large sums of money behind their positions, they would get eaten alive. Since the successful ones don't, it seems they are just pricing market reactions faster