I tend to agree with you on some level but I would stipulate that people are talking about something specific when they talk about consciousness or sentience. T

I tend to agree with you on some level but I would stipulate that people are talking about something specific when they talk about consciousness or sentience. There are entire fields of study dedicated to understanding cognition and reasoning IE cognitive psychology and as far as I know the nature of consciousness is still an actively studied question. My argument is that as far as ML and "AI" go its a moot point. It doesnt really matter one way or the other if the the model is "conscious". What really matters is if the model is capable in a given domain. Capabilities are far more important than whatever process gives rise to the capabilities. If someone is able to use ML to solve Go or prove a theorem it shouldnt matter if that ML model is sentient-because the game is solved or the theorem has a proof.