No, AI is not sentient.
To me, this comes down to a similar point Banno made in teh abortion thread a couple months back.

If you cannot recognize the difference between what a human mind, and an AI model is doing - I'm not sure this convo is the right place to start. AI is an S&R model taken to it's extreme. That's all it could be, from what I understand. Even it's internal 'learning' is not creative, but S&R. There are no inherent impulses for an AI.