Indeed, today’s AI systems are really just very sophisticated pattern recognition and generation systems. They do not “understand” anything, and there is no evidence that they “feel” — or if they do feel, it is the level of feeling that a fly might have.

Humans need to feel that others feel. Even animals need this: our cat comes around us and seems to need interaction and acknowledgement. Feeling and acknowledgement cannot be provided by a machine unless the machine is sentient; but if a machine is sentient, well then, it is really no longer just a machine, is it?