That's a slight on mindless robots (they're only following their programming) - whereas a sentient being choosing to provoke a response in another creature for amusement is, indeed, beneath contempt.

BTW, marvin_pa stands for Marvin the Paranoid Android, who might have preferred that Douglas Adams had made him a truly mindless (and therefore non-thinking, non-depressed) robot! Excuse me now, I have to go park a spaceship or something equally menial, which means going past that awful people personality door again...