"'it seems pretty plausible that AI will be at least somewhat nice', similar to how humans are somewhat nice to animals.". He must not know about factory farming - that thing where humans systematically hold harm and slaughter billions yearly. The following paragraph discusses if AI will care at all about humans and see us as valuable agents. The author then discusses how we do care about the wellbeing of cows. "We won't kill them for arbitrarily insignificant reasons" because clearly the taste of a good steak being more enjoyable than a plant based burger is anything but arbitrary. It's objectively more important than their life. To not understand the irony and ridiculousness here says something about the quality of the entire passage and the author's reasoning ability.
It's interesting how nearly every point on your list is a direct or indirect result of something Donald Trump did.