I think, as we build things which show the characteristics of living growing systems, we can apply a simple heuristic to decide if they are “alive” and therefor

I think, as we build things which show the characteristics of living growing systems, we can apply a simple heuristic to decide if they are “alive” and therefore of unique, unreproducible value. Certain living systems provide many of one - blades of grass, bees in a hive, cells in a body. Each of these individual entities can be replaced without fundamentally altering the whole. however, at certain scales, we have irreduceable living entities which we could not remake because they are the result of many complex interactions over time. The growth of a human, a tree, an old dog (without new tricks). Maybe AI LLM’s qualify as “conscious” when we would find ourselves as the makers unable to delete and rebuild the same thing - When the result of training over time builds a unique model which has unique value. Like other living things.