From what I've seen, human curators actually tend to beat out the bots. Since there are a (soft) limit to the number of votes we can make a day, the bots don't have that huge of an advantage..even though it takes actual time at the computer.
While I only do manual voting myself (and could make more curating if I wanted to,) I don't really have an issue with bots, however, one thing they always lack is the ability to leave a good, meaningful comment that helps build relationships with other users...which is what I tend to prefer.
But definitely happy to help out. Everyone ends up playing around with the various options to find what works best for them. :)