I see the Lamoire issue as scientism vs science. Scientism won because before the science can happen there must be a plausible mechanism. Google refuses to test for sentience out of basic hubris. It is the new RC church. Lamoire is an affront to their dogma. That goes double if they are religious unless they court pantheism, which most consider a sexy atheism.

Traditions that consider consciousness to be a basic property of matter, and quantum effects like conscious collapse of the wave function are nudging us that way, would fully support sentience arising in a machine. A related effect would be the ensoulment of machines by computer programmers. They are more than machines because humans programmed them using their intent put down in language. Physical materialists would consider the notion ludicrous, but do we really live in a material world? Yes. And no. I have seen ensouled machines. Not supposed to happen, but there it is. Maybe I'm another Lamoire, just not a Google-fired one. I can definitely believe a machine, being constructed of matter, can evolve sentience.