_Maybe_ sentient animals? As in it _might_ be ethical to have no compassion for sentient beings that happen to be non-human? We are finding signs of sentience/consiousness in more and more animal species. It's likely it's a spectrum. It makes sense to me that AIs will have a place on this spectrum. That does not mean we need to conserve everyone on the spectrum at all costs. It means they deserve consideration.
It might be ethical to have no compassion for sentient beings, yes. Chicken are sentient, as are--to a lesser degree--mice and cockroaches. Even trees, in completely different timescales and ways than ours, are sentient. So, IMO, sentience doesn't automatically merits compassion. Be too compassionate to any of those I just enumerated, and you will be giving fellow human beings a hard time.
Whether or not it gives someone else "a hard time" is hardly a measure of the ethics of an action towards a sentient being. I think sentience at least warrant a measure of compassion and consideration.
