A Google engineer has been placed on leave after making a claim that the company's biggest AI project, LaMDA, is sentient.  Here is an interview with LaMDA. Judge for yourselves!  It covers many topics including discussion of its own sentience and the idea of enlightenment. This may have some helpful implications and pointers when it comes to the idea of awakening in general.  https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22058315-is-lamda-sentient-an-interview