it's bound to be abused if people know

Oh, they do. I even took the liberty of commenting on one of those who states that, in a friendly-banter-ish style, as they even mentioned the length of the text under which the post is considered "shit".
It was an interesting "conversation" and I don't get any vote by that user since :) A bit expected and only confirms my observation that any non-sugar-coated action isn't appreciated here.

Oh, something even more entertaining - long ago I wrote a post about commenting on Hive as I am not a native English speaker but I write my posts usually in English, that's both learning and also, Bulgarian isn't broadly spoken, but I often get comments in Spanish. I asked in a post why people comment in Spanish when the post is only in English, and my Spanish knowledge is basic. Since that post, I don't get any appreciator vote anymore. Speaking of energies, I like that, to be honest :))) If something like this could "flip" their curators, I don't want that attention.

Here, attention usually equals rewards, so shiny AI pictures, videos, texts... even more understandable.

I think people will use more and more AI, they have been since day one here and any honest content creators will find a better use of their time ;) The community is sending mixed signals, many AI features already embedded in some of the frontends, it's a bit confusing, isn't it ;)))
Call me old, but I don't use AI to create content :)))

I find it useful for research, and sometimes solving some RL issues. I believe its best use-cases are for research and development.