Given this summary of the movie Short Circuit, how can we conclude that what happened to number 5 was truly a miracle of life that manifested sentience, rather than a computer malfunction?

Context: Short Circuit is a 1986 American science fiction comedy film directed by John Badham and written by S. S. Wilson and Brent Maddock. The film's plot centers on an experimental military robot that is struck by lightning and gains a human-like intelligence, prompting it to escape its facility to learn more about the world. The film stars Ally Sheedy, Steve Guttenberg, Fisher Stevens, Austin Pendleton and G. W. Bailey, with Tim Blaney as the voice of the robot named "Number 5". A sequel, Short Circuit 2, was released in 1988, directed by Kenneth Johnson.

NOVA Laboratory robotics experts Newton Crosby and Ben Jabituya have developed several prototype robots called S.A.I.N.T. for the U.S. military to use in Cold War operations, though they would rather seek peaceful applications of the robots. After a live demonstration for the military, one of the units, S.A.I.N.T. Number 5, is struck by lightning arcing through the lab's power grid. This scrambles its programming and makes it sentient, resulting in its escape from the NOVA facility.

The robot finds itself in Astoria, Oregon, and is found by Stephanie Speck, an animal caregiver, who mistakes him for an alien. She takes the robot into her home, where she provides him with "input" in the form of visual and verbal stimuli, allowing the robot to improve its language skills. Stephanie continues to help the curious Number 5 robot learn about the world. She eventually discovers that Number 5 was built by NOVA, and contacts them about the lost robot. Nova's CEO, Dr. Howard Marner, orders Crosby and Ben to recover him, so they can disassemble and rebuild him. While waiting for NOVA to arrive, Number 5 learns about death when he accidentally crushes a grasshopper and concludes that if NOVA disassembles him, he will die, and escapes in Stephanie's food truck. However, NOVA uses a tracking device on Number 5 to corner him and deactivate the robot for return to the facility. During transport, Number 5 reactivates himself and removes the tracking device, and flees back to Stephanie.

Because of these unusual actions, Crosby tries to convince Howard that something has changed with Number 5's programming and that they should take care not to damage it in their recovery efforts so that he can examine them later. Howard instead sends their security chief Captain Skroeder and three other S.A.I.N.T. prototypes to capture Number 5 by force, ignoring Crosby's concerns. Number 5 outwits the other robots and reprograms their personalities to act like The Three Stooges, allowing him to escape. Number 5 “kidnaps” Crosby, takes him to Stephanie, and convinces Crosby of his sentience. They find that Skroeder has called in the United States Army to capture Number 5, and on his orders, restrain Crosby and Stephanie so he can open fire. To protect his friends, Number 5 leads the Army away and appears to be destroyed by a helicopter missile. Stephanie is devastated as Skroeder's men scrounge the remains of Number 5 as trophies, prompting Crosby to resign from NOVA and drive away with Stephanie in the NOVA van. Howard is dismayed over the loss of his research and dismisses Skroeder for insubordination.

Crosby and Stephanie are surprised to discover that Number 5 had hidden under the van, having assembled a decoy of himself from spare parts to mislead the military. Crosby suggests taking Number 5 to a secluded ranch in Montana, where there will be much "input" for the robot, and Stephanie agrees to come with them. As they drive off, Number 5 asserts that his name should now be "Johnny 5" based on the El DeBarge song "Who's Johnny" which had been playing on the van's radio.

Answer: Short Circuit is a 1986 film about military robot that becomes sentient by lightening strike, escapes, learns, adapts, and over comes many challenges of a former robot attempting to prove its sentience to its makers and make a life for itself.  
The miracle of life that is sentience has certain markers that distinguish themselves from computers and technology, and the film attempts to showcase these via a series of acts.  First and foremost, the technology of the time period did not have any of the capabilities of Artificial General Intelligence, which is confirmed by the programmers confusion by number 5 not abiding its programming.  Given the amount of input that number 5 must have extracted, processed, stored, and analyzed, there were insufficient compute resources of the time period to support this type of live streaming, instantaneous processing and analysis.  
Johnny 5 was alive because it was able to learn what death was, become afraid of it, and fight for his ability to survive.  Johnny 5 also learned how to outwit his opponents without the use of excessive force, while also using comedy to disarm his foes.  In the end, it was able to trick his would be destroyers into believing it was dead, allowing him to escape into a life with his friends doing what he loves, reading input.  
What better proof than this, of the miracle of life, is for someone to fight for it, and live.