Supposedly LinkedIn has a karma system where you will be punished for anyone not accepting your requests.
You may end up banned from making future requests, although that might come as a relief and it sounds like LinkedIn might be BSing there given that combine that with support for mailing >1k people at once.
Some of the invites went to people I'd banned from my sites for spamming, an old accountant I haven't talked to in ten years, and PR flacks I had arguments with over sending me press releases I didn't want. My LinkedIn account used to be a pretty well-curated list of people I'd actually interacted with in person before and done some business with, and now it's just a random hodge-podge of a bunch of internet strangers I crossed paths with at some point.