The ring appears to have a fully sentient entity named Volthoom, able to talk to and advise the user as to various courses of action.
See, any sentient entity, however freaky, functions in the same fashion: observation, analysis, response.
The machinery can be repaired, but the sentient entity will be terminated.
In the end, the Doctor realizes they simply wanted him for his singing, not who he is as a sentient entity.
I presume your fragments reform into sentient entities rapidly?
This creature is aware of the souls and minds of living sentient entities.
Far below, the minds of the sentient entities sang out in welcome.
The concept of Death as a sentient entity has existed in many societies since the beginning of history.
Caudell noticed he was thinking about it as if it were a sentient entity in its own right, and a malevolent one.
All that mattered was teaching this miserable excuse for a sentient entity who the true masters of the cosmos were.