[iamflimflam1]

Reading the article made me feel slightly uncomfortable.

There is a slightly cruel streak that can emerge in online communities - let's see how much we can mess with this and cost it money.

Without any thought there might be a human being that is impacted.

[entrox]

And that is a good thing. What the human operator did was completely irresponsible and malicious, paying a small bill is hopefully educational and will correct their behavior going forward.

Having agents like this interacting with human communities is a scourge that must be prevented. With every passing day my longing for a Butlerian Jihad grows firmer.

[eqvinox]

Cruelty would imply a conscious, sentient subject, you can't be cruel to a machine. At best, you can be careless in your use of a tool, causing premature wear and deterioration.

In this case, you could theoretically argue about being cruel to the human operator behind, but that's quite a bit of a stretch. They gave billing access to a poorly controlled machine.