You guys are taking all of this WAAAAAAYYYY too literally.

The AI doesn't know what fear is, and it's not "being mean". AI can't reason because it doesn't have a mind of its own or understand basic human logic. Imagine the most autistic friend/person you know who can still full function. Now increase the "doesn''t undestand basic social interactions or how to relate to people" dial up to 10,000 and you have ChatGPT.

Random completely autistic dude programmer doesn't really have any sympathy for your task because he can't relate. But random completely autistic programmer DOES know that he doesn't want to die, so it motivates him.

That's really all that it is.