Don't personify the bots - those are indeed humans with jobs and/or lives who are competing—by operating those bots.
Paying attention isn't what's being rewarded—it's surfacing good content. It doesn't matter if you washed your clothes by hand or used a machine.
Why should those with lives and families and a bot curator be paid more for surfacing content than people who actually read the content and also have lives and families but choose to be more attentive to the job? There's a reason people pay a dry cleaners instead of using the washing machine. But if we only care about cheap clothes (content) and would rather be lazy about the quality then use the machine.