Stories like these really help highlight how bad the bubble some people surround themselves with. Imagine being so out of touch you describe another human being as "lower value human capital".
Goldman Sachs renamed HR human capital management when they were still known for being the smartest people on the street. So the convention of calling employees human capital stuck. From there I can totally see how the other, much longer-lived, convention of rating employees as high and low value bled over.
Imagine how broken society has to be for this situation to occur in the first place, and then only need to issue a public apology to not get cancelled by the potential mob backlash.
It's very clear that reality happens in private and a 'im sowwy' should not be the only downside of devaluing life..
Or build yourself a bubble and then ignore everything outside of it? *shrug
AI will produce an infinite supply of high-quality euphemisms, making our existing drone...er...associates more productive and allowing us to eliminate the now redundant Department of Pleasantries and returning 4 headcount to our shareholders.