I was hoping for something more insightful from Ted Chiang than just regurgitating the usual "it's just predicting the next token that's not consciousness". Maybe the topic of consciousness is just too ill-defined and vacuous to say anything intelligent about it.

Or maybe man is the product of his social circle and all his white collar and artist friends being anxious about AI is preventing him from thinking about this at all. Maybe we should ask if Claude can be conscious without a friend circle judging him behind his back.