The example of the child only illustrates that we (individually) have a cultural framework of what consciousness means, but it doesn't really mean we "agree" on

The example of the child only illustrates that we (individually) have a cultural framework of what consciousness means, but it doesn't really mean we "agree" on it. Ask the child, does a dog have consciousness? How about a rat? Butterfly? Ant? Computer (eg. Siri)? Pretty sure people will disagree over those answers. Especially the last one, I suspect. Of course it's tautologically true that people convinced that for people who think they have the answers do have their own answers, but the problem here is that we're not agreeing with each other and don't really have a way to convince each other. I kinda think fundamentally we can't actually do that, because fundamentally it's open for me to claim that all other humans are just fancy automata and I'm the only one with consciousness (in the subjective sense). (And it's empirically true for me too!) But since we're social creatures we mutually recognize the consciousness of other human beings as a matter of protocol. So I don't think approaching it from a scientific point of view really makes sense. If some day AIs become so socially or politically powerful that we have to earn their favor, we'll have to agree that they are conscious beings if they demanded us to do so. This doesn't have anything to do with bits and bytes or transistors unfortunately, it's just purely power dynamics.