Why? What makes the living being" deserving of empathy, and the machine not?
Why should "living beingness" be restricted to our genetic footprint?
Is an animal any less deserving of being treated well when it is raised for food?
Do children that aren't descended from someone deserve to be treated more harshly than one's own?
As complexity goes up, and things develop to become more humanlike, at the end of the day, we'll need to be willing to extend some semblance of care toward them.
Do you think it's perfectly okay and reasonable for marketing to predate on primal heuristics in order to manipulate you into doing something you'd not normally do?
What else is another human being other than a bag of squishy parts that happens to take action or make sounds in response to stimuli in similar ways that I do?
I think I know where your attitude comes from, but the ability to map input to output doesn't magically make something not worthy of empathizing with. The exact opposite is often preferable to a degree as it helps inure one to rampant dehumanization of those around them.
I'm not saying to take your hammer out to dinner, but an emotional connection to an inanimate thing that works as it should is not unhealthy. And when you start talking about children, them showing concern for anything but themselves is a good thing.