I think this is somewhat bidirectional.

Definitely true. I was thinking later that proof of attention is just the flip side of visibility as a service that I've written about before. And, of course, posts with more visibility will get more attention (all else being equal).

Theories of value (like the Labor Theory of Value, etc.) are tricky.

Yeah, I guess I was making the old argument that if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, then it doesn't make a sound. I think it's a solid argument with regards to a post's influence on the blockchain, though. Sure, there's probably some sort of intrinsic value, but it's mostly "potential value" until it gains someone's attention.

As an aside, I wonder if generating good questions about articles is a task that the current generation of AI would be good at.

I think this might be worth considering. I suggested something similar, here.

Instead of impersonating a human, suppose the bot commenter said something like this:

Hi, I'm an AI, and my analysis suggests that this post might be a good one for stimulating conversation. Here are some insightful topics and questions that emerge from your article. People might want to discuss these in the replies:

Append a list of suggested topics/questions