What is qualia?

Qualia refers to the individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. Jim O'Shaughnessy illustrates qualia using an example from the Pixar movie "Ratatouille." In a scene, a critic's first bite of ratatouille evokes vivid childhood memories and emotions, highlighting how sensory experiences can trigger complex, hard-to-define feelings. O'Shaughnessy emphasizes that if we can't define qualia, programming it into AI to become sentient remains a significant challenge 1 2.

Qualia, thus, represents those fundamental, personal experiences and sensations that are difficult to quantify or replicate in artificial systems.