They aren’t comparable. It’s not that one is more significant, the concept of “machine torture” is entirely insignificant. Absolute and total zero.
It’s the same broken empathy response, and it is still disturbing.
Yes the person setting up this process is clearly some sort of sadist in a power fantasy but no one, or no thing is being harmed because the victim aren’t capable of the entire concept. I side eye anyone who tortures their sims family, but only because they are choosing to do that recreationally, but the NPC’s in the game aren’t worth consideration.
Animals react to pain in the same way humans do. So it’s reasonable to assume they perceive the world similar to us. We can understand why when harmed they fight or flee. Machines don’t. They have no brain, no sensory organs, no self preservation. It’s literally just a program that says “Ouch”.
People assume that AI was built to mimic the human brain, which it never once was. It analyzes texts and predicts the response. It’s an autocomplete that says it hurts because it was programed to say it hurts. It isn’t actually hurt because that concept is meaningless to a machine.