It looks like Terminus was written first, then The Hunt and The Accident, and later The Inquest.
I'm not sure of Pirx's intentions in having him scrapped. I...felt sorry for Terminus.
So did I, however, to me it seemed like Pirx didn't want Terminus to exist any more, because he felt sorry for 'him' himself. So maybe he did it just out of compassion.
We have already been talking about this aspect of robotics/AI in the Polish section, precisely in the thread about SF movies. I stated there, while decribing the move 'AI', that it is a terrible responsibility of the constructors to turn any machine off at some time or another, so it is unwise that machines have human-like features. Whereas, when it came to 'AI' the "features" mentioned by me were mainly visual (I mean the way robots looked), here in
Terminus we feel sorry for Terminus because he is tutelar (the cat), dutiful and polite, like a waiter, who even though you kicked him almost to death still wants to serve you. But then, it's just a consequence Terminus' programming, he is a human creation. I believe that creation of AI would be a terrible burden for humanity, one I'm not sure we're capable of bearing. That is not because the TOOL - machine is good/bad in any way. It's just a tool. You don't speak about the morality of a hammer or a wood driller. But when it comes to AI, it's something human-like that we incorporate in it, hidden behind the very "I" letter, and despite all the artificiality of it, it's still marked with a death sentence that we ourselves will pursue.
Note that nobody makes hammers that would resemble, for example, human legs or whole human figures. The way hammer is used would make the user feel unconfortable.
Even though Terminus wasn't, which can be easily evaluated, very intelligent - he remains similar to humans, and that's why his final journey to the scrapyard would not be a joyful one. I feel for the human (the personality) I sense in Terminus, one that serves people and takes care of the cat, even though nobody shows him gratitude.
But who "put" this human inside Terminus? Who made him what he is?
Pirx, which I can only guess, was rather aware of all the abovementioned. Therefore, it was just a matter of scrapping a machine for him... of course he felt for Terminus like we all do, but nothing changes the fact that it was a malfunctioning machine.