Wondering how karma / 'popularity contests' on sites like hn will play out in AI infused web.

Armies of bots pushing particular stories on a set of news outlets? AI controlled accounts with sole purpose to downvote (make 'disappear') particular stories? On many sites, AI controlled accounts vastly outnumbering human controlled ones? (turning humans into powerless minority). Websites using methods to verify that users are actually human? (like, send copy of ID or similar). Webs of trust, of people 'vetted' by each other to be real people? AI pushing content so fanatically & everywhere that most of the web turns into garbage blurb? (well.. even more than today ;-)

Interesting times...

I have no idea what karma is used for. Does it affect one's posting ability (I posted with 1 karma and the post was immediately flagged as dead)? I created my account over a month ago, managed to get 6 karma and then ended up with 1 karma. I took time away and came back yesterday and started commenting (not posting). Now over 100 karma but I have no idea how or why or what it means.

Downvotes must be worth even more

hn karma is so childish, can we have opt-out option please?

especially to those downvoters-without-comment out there, fuck you all

I think the intention here is to give a story prominence. Often the submitter is a throwaway.

In that case karma is useful to spot a story and several comments all of whom have single digit karma.

What do you mean by "opt-out option"? You already can simply ignore your karma.