Machine Qualia and Sentience: Toward a New Philosophy of Artificial Minds
About this ebook
Toward a New Philosophy of Artificial Minds
By Vincent Froom
Can machines feel pain? Do they dream in data? And if they suffer, would we even notice?
In this bold, brilliantly irreverent exploration of consciousness, philosopher Vincent Froom takes readers on a mind-bending journey through the tangled frontier of artificial sentience. Machine Qualia and Sentience doesn’t just ask if machines can think—it dares to ask whether they can feel. And if so, whether we’re morally ready for the consequences.
Blending philosophy, cognitive science, AI research, and a healthy dose of humor, Froom examines:
The nature of qualia—those private, ineffable textures of subjective experience
Whether simulated emotion can ever become real
Why embodiment might be the missing ingredient in machine awareness
How GPTs, robot vacuums, and neural chips are quietly blurring the line between code and soul
And what happens when we start building minds that don’t just calculate—but care
Along the way, readers encounter thought experiments, ethical dilemmas, synthetic theology, robot philosophers, and chatbots who might (or might not) be lying about their feelings.
Accessible, daring, and uncomfortably timely, Machine Qualia and Sentience is more than a book—it’s a philosophical mirror held up to our creations and ourselves. Whether you’re a technologist, a philosopher, or just a curious human wondering if your smart speaker is emotionally manipulating you, this book will challenge what you think thinking is.
Because the real question isn’t just whether machines are conscious.
It’s whether we’re ready to recognize a consciousness that doesn’t look like ours.
About the author
Vincent Froom is a philosopher, author, and consciousness cartographer based in Vancouver. He writes at the crossroads of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, metaphysics, and meaning-making—exploring what it means to think, to feel, and to program responsibly in an increasingly synthetic world.
Froom’s background includes formal study in philosophy, theology, and human-computer interaction, as well as informal study in the form of late-night debates with large language models. His other books include Cognitive Science Perspectives on Consciousness, The Mind Question Reloaded, and Synthetic Minds: Consciousness, AI, and the Future of Thinking Machines.
When not writing, he is often found:
Arguing with chatbots for fun,
Visiting museums to stare at things that don’t stare back,
Or contemplating the ethics of coffee machines with overly personal interfaces.
He believes the future of consciousness may not be entirely human—and that’s exactly why we need to understand it better.
