The study is not about cruelty, but rather politeness. Impoliteness is not anything like cruelty. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as cruelty toward a machine

The study is not about cruelty, but rather politeness. Impoliteness is not anything like cruelty. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as cruelty toward a machine. That’s a meaningless concept. When I throw a rock at a boulder to break it, am I being cruel to that rock? When I throw away an old calculator, is that cruelty? What nonsense. I do think it is at the very least insulting and probably cruel and abusive to build machines that assume an unearned, unauthorized standing the social order. There is no moral basis for that. It’s essentially theft of a solely human privilege, that can only legitimately be asserted by a human on his own behalf or on behalf of another human. You don’t get to insist that I show deference and tenderness toward some collection of symbols that you put in a particular order