system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Could it be considered unethical for an author to make a character suffer?

Here's my reasoning. At least when it comes to their main characters, authors will usually have a very specific idea of who their character is, what kind of person they are, etc, to the point where if given a situation, they can easily know how the character would react.

To me that seems similar to having a detailed simulation of a sentient being on a computer (the computer being the author's brain).

So what I'm wondering is: are there enough differences between that simulation and a real sentient being so that making them suffer in a story isn't unethical? If so, what are those differences?
gpt
There seems to be very significant gaps here, namely between someone you are imagining in your head and a complicated simulation model, and between a complicated simulation model and an actual person. The obvious gap between someone you've imagined and a complicated simulation model is that is does not process any information in any way, the reaction to whatever stimuli you think up in the case of the imaginary is purely just something you come up with, while in the case of a  complicated simulation model it will process the new information you have given it, and based on how its been set up, will react in whatever way.