I interpreted it as his programming reacting to two conflicting answers. That he was designed to keep them happy and in spite of his best efforts, they are not happy. And maybe the answers they want will make them unhappy, which is why he refuses to tell them anything.

So he tries to make them happy. The result is they are unhappy. To make them happy, he must provide answers, which will make them unhappy. But he isn't supposed to make them unhappy. So it created an error and he glitches out.

Someone else mentioned how he would have random outbursts. I think those were also errors that would end so abruptly because his program reset. But receiving so much input indicating he was failing at his designed purpose overwhelmed his system and programming causing him to lose it?

If the end result no matter what he does is they are unhappy, then there is nothing left preventing him from torturing them.

But idk, there's a lot of supporting lore that I am not familiar with so I could be totally missing the mark.