Look at human history and you’ll find there’s very little relevant difference. Humans tend to generally decide that any “external group” is low value. The level of value is tightly correlated with how much we identify with the group. When white Americans saw blacks as savages closer to animals than “humans”, whites traded blacks as slaves and argued it was morally right. We mourn gorillas but not giant squid because we identify more with gorillas.

The question for robots is whether we’ll ever identify with them strongly. I’m doubtful.