Here's a thought experiment which helped me lose my 'belief' in qualia: would a robot scientist, who was only designed to study physics and make predictions about the world, ever invent qualia as a hypothesis?

Assuming the actual mouth movements we make when we say things like, "Qualia exist" are explainable via the scientific method, the robot scientist could still predict that we would talk and write about consciousness. But would it posit consciousness as a separate entity altogether? Would it treat consciousness as a deep mystery, even after peering into our brains and finding nothing but electrical impulses?