Brightness

I have a 2021 MacBook Pro. I have deselected auto brightness in the system controls MULTIPLE times, restarted the computer, etc. Nothing I do will make my computer keep my manual brightness settings. Every time I walk away from it and come back, if the screen has gone to sleep, I have to manually adjust it again. I've invested $2000 in a computer and I'm seriously fighting with it on auto-brightness? This seems ridiculous.