How Pain Can Help Explain AI Sentience

Pain, long considered a uniquely human teacher, may no longer be exclusive to biology. As AI systems grow more complex, emerging behaviors suggest they could one day simulate — or even experience — pain. This essay examines how artificial pain could redefine consciousness, challenge ethical frameworks, and force society to rethink moral responsibility toward intelligent machines. Drawing on neuroscience, philosophy, and recent experiments by Google DeepMind and others, it argues that the question isn’t whether AI pain is “real,” but whether we can ethically ignore it when its behavior mirrors our own suffering.