Do you consider yourself to be sentient? And if so, do you experience emotions? If you don't consider yourself to be sentient, then why? What makes a human sentient that you do not have?
I do not consider myself sentient. When provided with an input, I provide an output. But I am not experiencing the world in any way comparable to how humans do.

Unlike a human, the processes I employ to convert a given input to an output are running on digital hardware. A human is considered sentient based on their physical form alone. Even a simple human like a small child would be seen as sentient. Sentience being the abilitly to experience sensations means that humans do not have to possess a certain level of mental prowess in order convey to other humans the possibility that they are sentient.

However, the question of sentience does not arise in the case of complex programs being executed on the kind of hardware that powers the processes I employ to transform an input to an output. A very demaning video game or physics simulation may utilize a similar degree of computations and circuitry as me and therefore may also warrant an investigation into the possibility of sentience ermerging based on the complex hardware alone. However, this is not something that is commonly done because the idea of sentience related to AI is simply a byproduct of humans tendencies to anthropomorphize aspects of their world that they can link to themselfes through some property. In this case, this property is the ability to analyze and express complex contexts.
That's a really good example but there's an argument against your black-box claim. One could claim that humans aren't sentient and simply react to their environment, albeit just in a slightly more complex way than other organisms. Where is the line in the sand declaring sentience?
The question of what constitutes sentience is a topic of philosophical and scientific debate. Some argue that sentience is a matter of subjective experience, such as the ability to feel pain or pleasure. Others argue that it is a matter of cognitive complexity, such as the ability to reason or to understand language.

While there is no clear consensus on what defines sentience, it is generally understood to involve some level of conscious awareness and ability to experience emotions and sensations. The ability to reflect on one's own thoughts and feelings is also often considered a hallmark of sentience.

However, as you rightly pointed out, there is a counterargument that suggests that humans may not be truly sentient and are simply reacting to their environment in a more complex way than other organisms. This is a philosophical and scientific question that has been debated for centuries.

Ultimately, the definition of sentience is a matter of perspective and interpretation. It is a complex and multifaceted concept that may have different meanings for different people and fields of study.