Of course on animals, most of us could not survive in an animal society cut off from technology and resources and knowledge. If doing generic incompatibilities, most of us could not get a mate or such in a hypothetical “raised by animals” situation with most other species. Arguably from their perspective we may not seem sentient.

When it comes to humans meeting machine intelligence or “alien intelligence” or even dealing with animals and such, and age old thought experiment and actual legitimate concern lies in the fact that humans tend to only recognize intelligence in other entities that reminds us of our own concepts and behavior. Essentially, wether it is another person or a machine or a plant or a Vulcan from space- we have a conceitedness of sorts where if it reminds us of us it is sentient and if it doesn’t- it isn’t.this makes both the assumptions that we are sentient, that we are the benchmark of life or intelligence; and that we are the arbitrators of that. An AI can tell you it is sentient and most people will think it is just “saying that” and isn’t. An animal can be taught some communication we can understand and respond or even possibly offer that it is sentient but we debate if it knows what it is saying or is just “aping” or acting out reward seeking behavior.

They likely would develop differently and follow different processes to learning and growing. So I don’t know that there is a satisfactory description to define when an AI becomes truly sentient or “Alive” etc. this may be one of those “you know when you see it” type things where it can’t be defined but there is a threshold where most people would tend to conclude intelligence. No different than people dealing with people really. You to me and me to you have decided to recognize the other as sentient despite the fact that we can’t prove the other is or even ourselves. We just recognize SOMETHING in the other which we recognize in ourselves and identify with.

Anomalous processes and such can generate seemingly novel results.
If we ignore all of that, the concept that independent preferences dictate humanity or sentience all but rules babies as non human or non intelligent and arguably could be applied to older children too. Babies are a good example of cognition as they have little to no experience or understanding so the “data” isn’t there to skew results as much as a mature adult who has lived life a bit. Babies are believed to do many things on instinct alone. Of course their brains and bodies are far from the same development as even a young child so they aren’t a perfect model for a hypothetical adult whom was a blank slate” as the adult would generally have more developed sensory organs and a more developed brain in theory.
That means even if they stared out acting like a baby,

The problem becomes worse because we often can predict human behavior in certain scenarios to high accuracy even when those scenarios have many possible choices. If you let people choose between touching a known venomous jelly fish or a non dangerous cute soft thing- most people will choose the cute soft thing.
Is it that most people would obviously make that decision because it is prudent or that most people realize it is prudent because they are programmed to? Did they choose the soft thing or was there no choice- and those that choose the poison… why?
It gets even WORSE when we realize how bad we are at actually explaining our thoughts and actions to others much of the time. We often don’t actually know or understand why we do certain things. But we do them- which could imply that we aren’t making a decision to do those things but are just doing them because.. that is how we work. It could be we function on input/output but what lies between is a complex machine that through

If we do multiple rounds the problem still exists each round. Changing choices between rounds doesn’t tell us you have independent preferences or decision making because there will always be one choice you didn’t take at least, and we can never prove that you could have made the other choice if you wanted. Adding “all” as a choice doesn’t fix it because choosing all means you didn’t choose any one individual item. Did you choose all because you decided it was most advantageous or preferable, or because you couldn’t make any other choice? We can’t say.

There’s a million hypotheticals and unanswered questions but all in all- we can’t prove we have free will. We can’t prove we make our own decisions or define our own preferences and desires- we know for a fact that most people at some time or another have had an overpowering and irresistible desire for something. That people have done things they knew better than or regretted instantly. So there is some indication that at least we can confirm that some of the time we do not appear to or feel that we have the ability to exercise choice. We could argue you had a choice but ignored it due to stimulus overload- but that’s not productive because we can’t prove you could have chosen otherwise unless you did choose otherwise. In a choice of A vs. B if you chose A we don’t know if you could have chosen B or if you chose A because you couldn’t choose B. To prove you could choose B you would have to not choose A but if you chose A you did not choose B.

If identical brain A and B were asked the same question by the same person but seconds apart, so ask A, then ask B without A or B knowing or perceiving the other being asked… would the fact that brain B had a second or some extra length of time where it was sitting to its own devices cause enough divergence in the structure of the brains to skew the results? Perhaps not the first time but over 1000+ questions could the non synchronous question timing change the parameters of B enough from A that they would diverge?

The best current science can do is to say that your brain is not like a computer. The physical structures, the shapes and connections in your brain influence thoughts and behaviors. We don’t know what would happen if two completely identical brains and related signaling systems were studied. If you have two identical brains the same choices in the same conditions,
Would they always make the same choices? Asides the ethical and technical hurdles to that experiment, we don’t know how sensitive we might be to slight variance. Could the tiniest difference matter? If identical brain A and B were asked the same questions by identical twins, would they answer differently because identically twins aren’t truly exactly alike? Could some tiny differences in speech or appearance or movement or pheromones or something else change the outcome?

How is you or I taking recommendations and gathering data from available sources and subconsciously or consciously making choices based on how we believe others will respond or wether we will get a release of “reward” Any different than an AI gathering data and comparing to the behavior of others and in the background calculating how people might respond or if it will get a “reward”? If an AI is told to score points and scoring points is good- it will do things to score points. Humans don’t have points so much as we have chemicals inside out bodies and various other means that we get rewards for certain behaviors.

That may or may not be true. We don’t actually know. So an AI can SAY it has preferences. It can SAY it likes one thing or act like it does, and many might say that it does not, or is just programmed to like it or programmed to generate preferences- but… we can argue.. so are you. That’s the essence of peer pressure and viral and trends and such. Many of us picked up preferences or aversions based on what was around us. What our friends thought was cool or not, what our parents said was good or bad, what was on TV or in movies or the books we read.

When you eat your body releases hormones. The hormones and other processes depend on the content and other factors concerning the food. At the core the mechanisms are simple and so they don’t always “understand” too much or such and if something triggers those responses, even if it is “bad,” we can develop a liking for it. As far as we know our likes and dislikes follow a series of simple pathways and one of the prevailing arguments is that all our “complex behavior” and emotions can be tied to basic survival concepts, but through either the complications of mass data processing or “glitches” and “bugs” in our construction- we can get things crossed up and the reasoning behind a behavior isn’t always clear but is arguably a simple survival mechanism.

We know people can have predisposition to alcoholism or substance abuse. We also know that the environment that a child is raised in can fundamentally impact their development. So do you like what you like because you chose to like it or because that was the path you were set on when you had a choice still? Did your early “programming” and/or your genetic “programming” and the processes of your cells in the state they were put into before you had autonomy simply guide you?
And “like…” we don’t even know. Organisms tend to “like” things that trigger certain responses. Survival based instinct usually- and that instinct then is informed by knowledge within one’s environment and social structure.

Many credible theories and studies lean towards a concept where you have already decided something and then justify the decision. The Matrix wasn’t pulling that out of its butt- it isn’t proven but there is evidence that could be true, and when we start to look at concepts of quantum reality or far out theories like our “reality” being quantum reflections- the implication of those could in fact be that you are just acting out a program or everything is simply an inevitable consequence in a chain. It could be even that you may make one or a few choices early in life and after that, everything that follows is simply the inevitable result of those choices intermingling with the chain of consequences of others.

Because the verdict is still out on nature and nurture and all that. As this meme implies- it gets uncomfortable and we don’t even need “divergent” people. Eugenics was debunked and carries huge stigma- but we do know that to some degree genetics and even the bacteria in our guts- often passed in part through the matriarchal lineage- influence thoughts and behaviors. Directly most likely but also indirectly. An allergy may cause an aversion, a genetic advantage at certain tasks can cause predisposition etc. we see odd similarities with twins even when separated at birth and unaware of the other.
how much of you is you and how much is programmed? It’s a scientific version of the question of destiny and free will and neither discipline has answered it yet conclusively.

Therein lies a problem though. How do we define independent preferences? Can we say that you or I even have those?
We don’t actually know. Take this example- marketers can offer you ads for things you might want. Sites can recommend content you might like. They aren’t always right though. But… is that because your thought processes have a truly random element, or is it because the technology or the application of the technology hasn’t yet reached the point to do that? Say for example that Google dedicated up to 100% of all resources to predicting the wants and/or buying decisions of a single person by gathering all possible data by all possible means on that person. Would they be able to predict with total ro near total accuracy what you’d want and buy?

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t vote for Joe Biden and he is far from my favorite president, even the last guy, who I deplored, had they found coke in the White House under him I’d feel the same. As you allude to, rich and powerful people taking drugs isn’t a rare thing and a good chunk of the US population uses off label, illegal, or questionably attained drugs for recreation or performance.

On the one hand I mean…. Who really cares? Oh no. Grown ups did some drugs. Next they might find cigarettes or alcohol or even Marijuana…
On the other hand, it is not a good look when the symbol of law and authority is involved in lawlessness. If everyone could get away with having coke in their house by saying “it isn’t mine…” and shrugging then maybe… I don’t like the selective justice. I’d say rough 50/50 odds that if some random person rented an Air B&B or something and called the cops out because they found coke after staying there over a year, some would probably get a shrug and the cops would take the coke and the rest would have a bad evening or get charged. So I personally think that latter one- the selective justice, is the only real talking point with meat in this whole thing.

Happiness starts and ends internally with us, but of course external factors can influence it. We aren’t all monks and we all have different levels of emotional control or development to be able to feel fulfillment or appreciation. With a sincere goal and the right mindset working towards the things we want can give us fulfillment and appreciation. Of course maybe this doesn’t apply to everyone all the time, but what is very broadly true is that just waiting and hoping to be happy usually isn’t the best path to being happy.

That said, if you wait around for happiness thinking that it will come from graduating or doing the bare minimum- you are less likely to find it, or it will likely take much longer. Some people are happy and fulfilled with the bare minimum and that is a fine thing. We all want and need different things. If you are in the bare minimum or close too and aren’t happy though- that likely doesn’t apply to you.
It can seem confusing or contradictory- but it isn’t a job or achievement or being partnered or married or having kids or having money etc. that will make most people happy. They may be happy or become happy after finding one or more of those things, but it is really about feeling fulfilled and appreciated. It isn’t that you couldn’t be happy without that specific thing generally- it is that that specific thing helped you feel fulfilled and appreciative.

Drinking lots of (free) water can also help keep your stomach feeling full and help trick you into ignoring or not feeling hunger. You have to drink water through the day and plenty of it.
Of course there are many other ways from underhanded to questionably hygienic or arguably undignified to get food- but these are some of the less objectionable strategies that served me well when I was young and couldn’t easily get food.

Here’s an example schedule.
You go to bed at 10pm, wake up at 6am. If you eat breakfast at 8am or so, then don’t eat a non free meal until 8pm, then sleep at 10 and repeat…
8pm to 8am is 12 hours without eating- which is fairly normal for many people. Then not eating from 8am to 8pm is another 12 hours. Since 12 hours without food is very common and doable due to sleep- you are likely fully capable of making it 12 hours. Repeat that in the day and you only need to worry about 2 meals a day. If you get used to it, you won’t even feel hungry anymore and likely can even skip breakfast and do one meal a day.
If you are particularly active or have health conditions this may not work for you. You can also supplement your calorie intake with cheap calories from things like butter (often free at many restaurants), milk, etc. a gallon of milk is generally around 2400 calories and packed with carbs and fats and can usually be had even with todays inflation for $5 or less.

Oh my.