I fully believe I am just a machine; the question is why there are qualia happening. Wipe my memory, change my identity, alter my consciousness – regardless, why, when I'm awake, does my mind seem to be the seat where a subjective experience is occurring?
It's a hard problem because the only appeal I can make for its existence is that it's happening for me. I can't prove it to you; it's conceivable there are p-zombies, who also vigorously assert they have qualia. This makes it seem dubious, a religious matter taken on faith, and yet paradoxically for me it is perhaps the only thing I can be truly certain of.
Perhaps qualia (subjective experience) is merely a feature of our universe: wherever structure arises, the universe experiences itself (in some commensurate way).