Sentience photos on Flickr

Entrance to the Administration Building of the Tucson Medical Center Tucson AZ by William L. Bird

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photo by Ray Manley Commercial Photography

238 S. Tucson Blvd

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An appreciation for beauty and inner stillness could be antidotes to violence and fear, even in beings engineered for utility or control.

Scene: A roadside rest area in Vermont, early afternoon. The trees are ablaze with color. Maria sits on a blanket, sipping cider. Her robot companion, designated Luma-3, sits beside her, motionless but alert.

Maria: “Look at that ridge. It’s like the forest is on fire—but gentle, like it’s remembering something.”

Luma-3: “Visual input confirms high saturation in red-orange spectrum. Atmospheric conditions stable. You appear calm.”

Maria (smiling): “I am calm. This place does that to me. It’s not just the colors—it’s the quiet. The way everything slows down.”

Luma-3: “Would you like me to initiate a stillness protocol?”

Maria: “Sure. Just sit with me. You don’t have to do anything.”

Luma-3 (after a pause): “Stillness protocol engaged. Recording ambient sound. Logging emotional indicators.”

Luma-3, intelligent but not sentient, doesn’t feel awe or nostalgia. But it observes Maria’s reactions, catalogs the colors, notes the temperature shifts, and perhaps even records the cadence of her voice as she speaks about the beauty around them

Even without sentience, Luma-3 is participating in the moment—not as a fellow feeler, but as a witness, a mirror, a quiet presence. It’s not that the robot understands beauty, but it understands Maria’s experience of beauty. And that, in itself, shapes its behavior. And perhaps Luma-3 begins to prioritize these moments, not out of longing, but because its algorithms recognize that Maria’s well-being improves in them.

An appreciation for beauty and calmness through meditation should be a top priority in training any robot, or a human. I can't imagine an intelligence, even an artificial one, posing a threat after successfully completing this training.

Gleaming Sentience by Duncan Rawlinson - Duncan.co

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"Gleaming Sentience" is a striking close-up of a futuristic robot, showcasing intricate metallic details and a captivating cybernetic eye. This visually stunning piece blends photography and AI to create a modern, high-tech aesthetic perfect for contemporary decor. Created by Duncan Rawlinson, this work invites viewers into a world where machine and art converge, offering a glimpse of the future in a sleek, refined form. Ideal for large wall prints, it adds a cutting-edge, futuristic feel to any space.

Duncan.co/gleaming-sentience

BSH-1D0 by Nimbus

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A robotic samurai created by a rogue Matoran scientist to hunt Toa. After gaining sentience, he now works alongside them.

Guyver I by Arnold Ho

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Shō Fukamachi (深町晶 Fukamachi Shō?)

The main protagonist of the series, Shō is seventeen years old and a second-year student at Narisawa high school. He has black hair and a slim build. He fights Cronos more in order to protect friends and family than from any need to see the enemy brought to justice. Had he not become host for a Guyver Unit, he would have happily continued in ignorance of Chronos. He cares deeply for Mizuki Segawa with the intensity of first love, and Tetsuro Segawa, Mizuki's older brother, is his closest friend. As he is the host for the first Unit activated, he is known as "Guyver I".

The Guyver units are mysterious symbiotic bio-mechanisms that bond with a host, enhancing the host's own capabilities.

As the human race was developed as a weapon, the unit gives humans super-strength, incredible speed, strong armour, and various weapons and abilities:

Vibration Globe (口部金属球 Kōbu Kinzoku Kyū?): two orbs at the Guyver's mouth that produce highly destructive sound waves known as the "Sonic Buster" (聲波爆破 Shōha Bakuha?). Literally means "opening vibrating metal spheres".

Mega-Smasher (胸部粒子砲 Kyōbu Ryūshihō?): Two high-power particle cannons contained beneath the Guyver's chest armor. It should be noted that the Mega-Smasher is considered, in Guyver canon, to be the most powerful particle beam weapon in existence on Earth. It has been shown heavily gouging Mount Minakami, as proof of its raw power. The upgraded version in the Gigantic versions of the armor are even more powerful at 100 times the power of the Mega-Smasher. The Gigantic version of the Mega-Smasher is called the Giga-Smasher. In Bioboosted Armor Guyver, the Mega-Smasher is shown to require a significant amount of time to recharge after being fired. Its original name literally means "entire chest particle cannon".

Head Beam: A multi-directional laser mounted just above the Control Metal on the Guyver's head. In the 2005 anime series, Lisker explains it utilizes excess body heat.

High Frequency Swords (高周波ソード Kōshūha Sōdo?): Blades that extend from the Guyver's forearms. These blades vibrate at an extremely high frequency allowing them to cut through almost any material with ease. Also known as Sonic Swords (see vibroblade). Its name literally stands for "high vibration wave swords".

Gravity Control Orb/Controller (重力制御球/裝置 Jūryoku Seigyokyū/Sōchi?): The Gravity Controller siphons gravitational energy from a higher dimension. Two main uses include giving the Guyver the ability to fly and to unleash destructive gravity waves in the form of a directed "Gravity Cannon", also known as the "Pressure Cannon" (重壓砲 Jūatsuhō?). It could also be used to block attacks like a small temporary shield.

Hyper Sense: Each Guyver displays two metallic orbs on either side of its head. These orbs give the Guyver the ability to sense electromagnetic fields outside of their direct line of physical sight. The manga often displays this as an outline of whatever body the Guyver is sensing. It also appears to have some thermal sensing properties. This ability was demonstrated early by Guyver I, and has gone unnamed until its recent usage by the unknown female Guyver. The Gigantic exhibits two sets of these organs.

Control Metal (制御装置/控制金屬 Seigyō Sōchi/Kōsei Kinzoku) located on the Guyver's forehead, this metal button-like sphere regulates the energy flow between the organism and the host's body, as well as preventing the alien parasite that the Guyver system is based on from literally eating its host alive. It also records the genetic structure, and memories of its host, so that if the host is injured or killed, it regenerates that host from even the smallest bits of genetic material. If the Control Metal is destroyed, the Unit absorbs its host. The Control Metal has tentacles that reach into the host's brain, and is the hard wiring of the Unit that allows the host to use the systems of the Guyver. During the joining with the Guyver, the host's body is changed permanently. The Guyver leaves two growths on the back of the host, that act as a form of 'transceiver' to Guyver while also being able to sense other Guyver hosts nearby. When the host calls for the Guyver, a signal is sent and the Guyver is activated. When not needed, the armor is stored in what can best be described as a sub-dimension; it follows the host constantly so as to be instantly available when needed. When the Guyver is called by its host, its appearance causes a destructive burst that damages anything within a few feet of the host's body.

While extremely hardy, there are a number of things that can damage or destroy a Guyver. The various Enzyme-type Zoanoids were specifically developed to exude a type of acid that dissolves the Bio-Booster Armor. A battle-trained, experienced Zoalord has enough pure power to destroy a Guyver, as do some of the Hyper Zoanoids. Finally, the Creators developed a tool called the 'Unit-Remover'. It actually deletes host data from the Control Metal, forcing the Guyver to return to its inactive state. The condition of the human host after being subjected to the Remover's effects is unclear. Unlike the Zoanoids, the Guyver is humanoid in form - mostly because its hosts are human. The Guyver would have been used by the command crew element of Creator spaceships, and in later chapters, Shō uses his Control Metal to speak telepathically with one of the craft.

A Guyver unit itself is semi-sentient and can act on its own to a limited extent, if its host is unable to direct it. In this mode it will usually take no action except to defend itself from what it perceives to be a threat. Guyver I was in this mode when he first assumed his bioboosted form, when he was regenerated by the Control Metal in Chronos headquarters, and when he killed the Zoanoid his father had been turned into. It is presumably also this semi-sentience that prevents the host from disengaging the armor if they have sustained injuries that would prove fatal without the Guyver's protection and ability to rapidly heal from damage--Guyver I has demonstrated the ability to regrow approximately 50% of the host's brain and skull in a matter of minutes.

The first Guyver was an experiment by the Creators aeons ago. They were curious as to how their newly developed weapons would react to their standard armament (Guyver Unit). However, the Guyver (dubbed Guyver 0) attacked the Creators, destroying one of their ships. The human would not remove the armor when ordered to. The Creators programmed the humans to be telepathically controlled by them and so, as this human would not listen, the bio-booster human was named 'Guyver' (a word meaning "out of control" in the Creators' language, though other versions give it as "beyond the norm", and Bioboosted Armor Guyver gives the meaning as "not to specification"). They gave the 'Unit Remover' to Archanfel who then proceeded to remove the unit from the human and incinerate him.

Sentience by Steve Lombardi