I'm hoping the robots are temporary. When users submit stories it shows their pictures. I've considered using embedly or writing something of my own though. What do you think is better, user pictures or a picture from the linked to page?
I'd rather not see the users pictures at all. With most sites it seems you end up with a few bulk submitters in each category. Seeing their faces/avatars over and over again would get really old really fast. I could see it also potentially altering voting behavior. There are certain users on all social media sites (reddit and hn included) where some users will be upvoted/downvoted just due to their popularity or "fame". A visual indicator might increase those trends as they are faster to spot.