There is no research disproving sentience, partly because we don’t even know what it is, how it arises, how to measure it, or whether we can even prove that it’s there. For all we know, LLMs might already be fully conscious (I highly doubt it though). So your sneering condescension about their “lack of comprehension” is quite ironic here.

That’s without even digging into the fact that there’s no specific reason that “friendship” requires “human sentience”. That’s a requirement you made up, likely because you simply hate LLMs for whatever reason.