The body is the mind's interface with the world. Why couldn't a digital mind "feel sensations", subjective as they are, on its own interface with it? If it's assumed to not be a subject, then how could it be a mind at all?
I didn't say AIs couldn't be conscious, only that mimicking behavior (or speech) is not a way to become conscious.
I'm sorry, then what was that "more scientific" reason you gave for?
Lack of sensory organs due to lack of a body. A sophisticated enough robot might be able to have conscious experience. That gets into the harder problem that Ned Block laid out where we don't know whether consciousness is biological or functional.