The societal debate surrounding AI companions isn't just about their effects on humans. Increasingly, it's about whether the companions themselves can have humanlike experiences. One research paper argued that there is a realistic possibility that some AI systems will be conscious and/or robustly agentic in the near future. One thing we argue is that it really is not a matter of science fiction to ask whether AI systems could be conscious or sentient or otherwise deserve moral consideration.There is a real ...