[tomp]

It's simulating, there's no real substance, except the "homonculus soul" that its human maker/owner injectet into it.

If you asked it to simulate a pirate, it would simulate a pirate instead, and simulate a parrot sitting on its shoulder.

This is hard to discuss because it's so abstract. But imagine an embodied agent (robot), that can simulate pain if you kick it. There's no pain internally. There's just a simulation of it (because some human instructed it such). It's also wrong to assign any moral value to kicking (or not kicking) it (except as "destruction of property owned by another human" same as if you kick a car).

[EnergyAmy]

How do we know they don't feel true pain? Can you define it well enough? Perhaps humans are the ones just "simulating" pain.

We've proven that they can have substance, we imbue it with a process called RLHF.

[tomp]

Well they have no pain receptors, for one.