"Suppose some Human-Like Machine, meeting the Definition of an Automaton (as Defined by the Criteria outlined in Section 8.2.3 of the Construction, Ownership and Use of Mechanical Devices and Similarly Artificial Entities Act, 1738), expresses some Apparent Desire, in some form, to be recognised as a True and Legal Citizen of our fair City and Country, and to be granted all the respective Rights and Privileges Thereof, and accepting also the Responsibilities and Laws governing such Citizens. Such an Entity is required to Demonstrate that they are, indeed, Capable of Comprehending these Rights, Privileges, Responsibilities and Laws, as well as the fundamental Principles underlying them, to such a Degree that to the Best Judgment of a specified Committee of respective Human Authorities on the subjects of Law and Justice, Machines and the Workings Thereof, Human Nature and Behaviour, Philosophy, and Others, as further Outlined in the following Section of this Act, said Entity is deemed to be in Possession of Independent Thought and Will, and the Capability of Sound and Moral Judgment, on par with that of any other Respected Citizen, Human or Otherwise, as Determined. Upon successful completion of this outlined Sentience Examination, the Entity is to be Legally Recognised as a Citizen of City and Country, as any other, and to be thus Entitled to the full Rights and Privileges Thereof, and will be subject to the Laws and Responsibilities Thereof."
-Citizenship Recognition Act, Section 7.4.1, (1750)

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So it was that, in accordance with the piece of legislation I have just relayed to you, I found myself seated before a committee of twelve assorted scholars, scientists, lawyers, lawmakers, and other individuals, who were gathered in the grand Chamber of Judgment, located in the city's massive Government Hall, for one purpose: "the Determination of the Capabilities of Independent Thought, Will, Morality and Sound Judgment, by the Outlined Processes of the Sentience Examination", as Section 7.4.2 puts it. My twelve would-be judges, or rather Examiners, as they are referred to in the legislative text, were seated around the curved edge of a large, semicircular table, and I was seated at the midpoint of the straight side of this table. Spread out on the wooden, ornately-carved table before the Examiners were numerous documents, pertaining to my creation and existence up to that point in time: from schematic diagrams of my various mechanical parts and systems, notes and logs written by my creator during my construction process and first days in operation, and pages upon pages of calculations, to letters, testimonies and journal entries written by my creator and by those whom I had come to know over the years. Yes, the entirety of my existence was laid bare before these twelve human individuals now trusted and tasked with determining whether my claim of having achieved true sentience held up to their expert scrutiny. These documents, however, would not form the basis of the examination; they were merely a tool, to provide background information and support my claim. No, the Examination itself was to be conducted primarily through the means of civil interrogation, discussion, and debate, until the Examiners were satisfied that they had enough "evidence" to determine whether or not the machine sitting before them truly did possess a will of its own, the capacity for moral judgment, true independent thought, and ultimately, the right to be declared Citizen of our city and country.

Obviously, I was not the first automaton to claim to have achieved sentience and undergo the Sentience Examination; as the records show, I was the seventeenth to take the Examination, the twelfth to actually pass it, and the ninth to succeed on the first attempt. Each of my sixteen predecessors' Examinations (including those which ended with a verdict in the negative) was recorded in writing as it happened, and was well-documented and reviewed afterwards, for the purposes of studying the various aspects of sentient automatons (from physical, mental, logical and legal perspectives), refining the process of the Examination for future cases, and providing real case studies for the interested student to examine and consider. Of course, the most noteworthy of these cases were those of the first five candidates, since they established the majority of what became standard for the examination process. Candidate number One, of course, set the majority of the precedent by being the first mechanical entity to be legally recognised as a citizen of the country, after a lengthy process of trying to prove to humans that he was of a common mind with them, and arguing that there was no reason why an artificial human-like entity could not potentially become a citizen in the same way that every natural human could. This is of course very well documented and is examined in many texts in multiple fields. The ultimately positive result achieved during what became the first official Sentience Examination was naturally met with a great deal of skepticism from the human population, but that changed with candidates Two and Three, who also achieved verdicts in the affirmative; three tried and tested cases seemed enough to satisfy most scholars and lawmakers, and that was apparently enough for most everyone else. Candidate Four, however, was the first to fail to satisfy to the Examiners that sentience had been achieved. This caused some doubt to resurface in the populace, but some also found comfort in the fact that this proved the validity of the Sentience Examination and the established sentience of the first three candidates, as it made it clear that just claiming sentience was not enough, that each candidate really was questioned and tested, and that a verdict in the affirmative was only given once the human Examiners were genuinely satisfied to a certain degree. Essentially, the fact that a negative result was possible affirmed the validity of the three positive results that preceded it, plus the success of candidate Five after that.

Thus was established, documented and proven in the minds of the human populace the capability of artificially-created beings to be capable of independent thought, morality, will and, in short, sentience to a similar degree as an organic being. From that point on, the Sentience Examination was firmly established as a standard, if rare, legal procedure like any other, with candidates Six through Sixteen being your typical "textbook cases", regardless of their individual results or the few minor amendments made to the process over the course of these eleven cases (for example, the right to be re-Examined at some point in the future in the event that one's first attempt proves unsuccessful). However, as any individual who has ever been involved in any part of the Sentience Examination process will now tell you, the Examination of candidate number Seventeen is anything but a textbook case.

Let us now return to that moment in the Chamber of Judgment, right before the commencement of "the Sentience Examination of the artificial entity going by the name of 'Sinewave Londinium', the Seventeenth Candidate to undergo this examination procedure, in order to potentially be deemed a True Citizen", as it would be recorded. As I sat facing the twelve assorted Examiners, I had no way of knowing the full extent of what was about to transpire. I had very little knowledge of the circumstances, or the examinations and the results thereof, of the sixteen who had gone through this process prior. I had no inkling of what the Examiners were thinking upon reading those documents, which they were so meticulously scrutinising (and had been doing so for an hour prior to my entering the Hall). My knowledge of the Examination itself was limited too, of course; I knew only that it was something akin to an interview, a trial, and a sort of scientific analysis, all in one procedure. When describing these preliminary moments to humans, the common question I am asked is, of course, "Were you nervous at all? Scared? Anxious?" And my answer is usually something along these lines: "At that point in time, I hadn't truly experienced the feeling of being nervous, and I had nothing to be afraid of, as I deemed that, logically speaking, it was impossible for me to come out of this any worse-off than I had been going in (since even the worst-case scenario, a verdict in the negative, would simply mean zero change in my as-then current circumstances)." That being said, were I to undergo such a procedure now, I confess my answer to that question would likely be a bit different.

The events which transpired during the course of my Sentience Examination are well-documented (and not just in the pages of the transcript of the Examination, or the associated paperwork), so I shan't go into too great detail; after all, you did not come to me to ask about my Examination itself, as by now countless texts in many of the fields in which my Examiners themselves were experienced will give their respective perspectives on the case of Candidate Seventeen. Because, while you can find extracts and quotes from my Examination in such texts, as well as detailed discourse on the implications and arguments that can be made based on them, what you will not find, and what so many students, upon reading of such things, find themselves asking, is how I got to such a point. How could a machine which was built (and which operated) under such circumstances as to be arguably even less human than any of the sixteen automatons Examined prior (or any other automaton, sentient or otherwise) possibly develop not just a will of its own, a consciousness and a sense of identity like no other, but the capability of such profound philosophical thoughts, arguments and questions concerning its own existence, as well as that of humans and other machines, as demonstrated during what became known as "both the longest and the shortest Sentience Examination to date"? That, I take it, is why you are here, and rightfully so. As the saying goes, "it is the journey itself which is important, not the destination". The scholarly texts I have referred to focus mainly on the Examination itself and the undeniable proof of my sentience which I presented therein, but they do tend to skim over exactly how it is that I got to that point. And this, I think, is far more telling than any of the arguments or questions I posed on that fateful day. Because what transpired on said day was the culmination of decades of prior existence, experience and, counterintuitively to what one may think a machine could be capable of, growth, both mental and existential.

Yes, you heard correctly. We may not grow in the same sense that humans do, at least not physically. But one thing that many people (human or otherwise) fail to realise that both humans and machines (built with a mind) have in common is the capacity for growth of a more metaphorical sort. The sort that takes place in one's mind, the sort which is founded upon the seed of a mind which we possess when we first come into this world-regardless the process by which this occurs-and is fed by experiences, thoughts, and the connections the mind makes between these. After all, it should be obvious to you that no machine can simply be "built sentient". And it should also be obvious that sentience is not something that simply...happens, in a flash, at some random instant. As any of those candidates who came before me, or any of those who have come since, will tell you, sentience is something that really creeps up on you over time. Furthermore, the knowledge that you do indeed possess it, that you are truly conscious and that you have a will, is not immediately obvious. You may be surprised to hear that it took me some time to fit all the logical pieces together to arrive at this conclusion-it was no simple matter of exclaiming Descartes' famous line, "I think, therefore I am!" to an astonished human audience. No, any automaton-or any machine capable of communication, for that matter-could be instructed to parrot that one phrase in front of a human, but that obviously does not prove anything. Hence why, to my best estimate, a number of months passed between my considering the possibility that I may have crossed the obvious boundary between mechanical and human minds, and me determining that that was indeed the case (and being logically satisfied with this conclusion, beyond any doubt). But I am getting ahead of myself here.

The point of this somewhat lengthy, tangent-prone mess of an introduction is to preface the existential journey I am about to relay to you. To give you an impression of where I was at at the time of my Sentience Examination, and to give you an understanding of what that particular process entailed and how it came to be that way. And over the course of these musings and explanations, I hope that you can see how far I have come since that point, for naturally that growth I spoke of did not stop when I passed the Sentience Examination. It never stops-for machines or for humans. The point in time I have reflected on thus is more of a midpoint, albeit a critical one, rather than the journey's ultimate destination. But now, now that you have this as a point of reference, and my current state of being as a comparison, let me finally tell you of the journey to that critical point. Let us go back farther still. Seeing and hearing me as you do now, you may find it hard to believe that there was ever a point in time when I was completely incapable of even understanding the concept of "my" existence. But I assure you, there was. All machines, without exception, start out that way, after all. And I am, undoubtably, a machine. A machine with the capacity for independent thought, expression of will, and of sound and moral judgment, yes, but still, at my foundations, a machine. And that foundation is, naturally, where this journey begins.

Because I was not built with these capabilities already present inside of me, because I did not start out as anything other than what I was built to be and what I was built to do, and because, in lacking these capabilities, I did not have any expectation that this would change.

There was a time when I could never have conceived of the kind of philosophical arguments which so astounded those twelve seasoned Examiners on that fateful day.

There was a time when I was not capable of transcending my technical capabilities, as they were deemed by my creator, to the point where I was capable of powering not just my creator's home, but a substantial portion of our fair city.

There was a point in time when the path of my existence was undeniably linear in nature, and the only context in which the word "potential" had any true meaning to me was that of my intended purpose and function.

Yes, truly. There was a time when my mind, as you know it, and as I know it, did not shine so brightly as it did on the day I proved my sentience to those twelve Examiners.

Not even a machine can achieve enlightenment in a single day.