Claude code is neither sentient nor sapient.

I suspect most people envision AGI as at least having sentience. To borrow from Star Trek, the Enterprise's main computer is not at the level of AGI, but Data is.

The biggest thing that is missing (IMHO) is a discrete identity and notion of self. It'll readily assume a role given in a prompt, but lacks any permanence.

The analogy I like to use is from the fictional universe of Mass Effect, which distinguished between VI (Virtual Intelligence), which is a conversational interface over some database or information service (often with a holographic avatar of a human, asari, or other sentient being); and AI, which is sentient and smart enough to be considered a person in its own right. We've just barely begun to construct VIs, and they're not particularly good or reliable ones.

One thing I like about the Mass Effect universe is the depiction of the geth, which qualify as AI. Each geth unit is not run by a singular intelligent program, but rather a collection of thousands of daemons, each of which makes some small component of the robot's decisions on its own, but together they add up to a collective consciousness. When you look at how actual modern robotics platforms (such as ROS) are designed, with many processes responsible for sensors and actuators communicating across a common bus, you can see the geth as sort of an extrapolation of that idea.

Any claim of sentience is neither provable nor falsifiable. Caring about its definition has nothing to do with capabilities.

> I suspect most people envision AGI as at least having sentience

I certainly don't. It could be that's necessary but I don't know of any good arguments for (or against) it.

Student: How do I know I exist?

Philosophy Professor: Who is asking?

Student: I am!

Mine is. What evidence would you accept to change your mind?

Why should it have discrete identity and notion of self?