I'm not convinced HN is awash in bots, but there are certainly some inauthentic accounts here.

What if you want to change public opinion about $evilcorp or $evilleader or $evilpolicy? You could explain to people who love contrarian narratives how $evilcorp, $evilleader and $evilpolicy are actually not as bad as mainstreamers believe, and how their competitors and alternatives are actually more evil than most people understand.

HN is an inexpensive and mostly frictionless way to run an inception campaign on people who are generally better connected and respected than the typical blue check on X.

Their objective probably isn't to accumulate karma because karma is mostly worthless.

They really only need enough karma to flag posts contrary to their interests. Even if the flagged posts aren't flagged to death, it doesn't take much to downrank them off the front page.