I mean, he could have had it stick a knife into its hand or jump headfirst off the stairs. What he does instead is completely bitchy but also absolutely targeted at its personality and what he knows it would find uncomfortable. If he genuinely wanted to hurt it, he has many more destructive ways of doing that. He's not treating it like a Roomba even though he's very evidently trying to convince himself that it is no more than one.

Yes! And I think it's significant that they actually show a human doing this in the very first scene (burning Murderbot's hand with the laser) and another human having zero problem with it except in the sense that "that thing is expensive" -- this is on the level of stupid vandalism, not assault. But physically harming Murderbot either doesn't occur to Garathin or is dismissed (consciously or subconsciously) as A Step Too Far.