My comment still applies; I never said the data was read-only.
It's stored as parameters in a simulated neural network, which Is why I referred to it as a "fancy" database.
I've studied the concepts and progression of AI systems for several decades, it's one of my main "side interests"; the state of the art as of today is still a very long way behind human sentience.
There are also some very fundamental differences between present AI approaches and biological sentience. The present AIs are still variations of Expert systems, regardless of how they are used.
If it were purely computing power, how come no one has mapped the brain of such as a corvid (crow or raven)?
Their brains is a fraction of human size, but they are pretty much next down from us in intelligence and social structure - an ideal candidate that should be able to be created in existing, reasonably powerful, computers?
There is simply no model of "I" / "Me" - the "ego" & Superego in psychological terms, that makes a sentient creature self-aware and self-willed. There are various other missing essential factors as well, that's just the most obvious.