One of many things that's irksome about "are LLMs conscious" discourse is that humans are by and large fucking awful at telling what is and isn't conscious.

People got vibesick over ELIZA for fuck's sake! A lot of people playing Portal got broken up over melting down the Weighted Companion Cube, which is categorically inert even in the plot of the game.

At the same time, a lot of folks reject the humanity of neurodiverse people or people of color. We plain suck at determining consciousness.