You’re right that an LLM doesn’t care how it’s treated - it’s not conscious. But that’s not really the point. The way people treat things that seem human still says something about them, not the thing. If someone goes out of their way to be cruel to a chatbot that’s just trying to be helpful, it’s not the bot that’s being tested - it’s the person’s capacity for empathy and restraint.

It’s the same instinct behind how we treat animals, or even how kids treat toys - being kind to something that can’t fight back is part of what keeps us human. And historically, the “it’s not really human, so it doesn’t matter” argument has been used to justify a lot of awful behavior.

So no, the AI doesn’t care. But maybe it still matters that we do.