"nobody claims that non-text transformers, like AlphaFold, are conscious" - that seems like an odd take. There are plenty of people in the camp of panpsychism that would be happy to argue that even simple IF/ELSE AI's are potentially conscious.

Chiang also claimed that LLMs are text-based DeepFakes, I thought that was the more interesting point (maybe harder to argue correctly about).

Well said. I think a more honest article would’ve been if the author just said “they aren’t conscious because that feels kinda weird and crazy, amirite?”