We lack a definition of consciousness that allows us to tell whether Data is conscious or not. Neither can we tell whether a rock is conscious or not. We believe other humans to be generally intelligent without being able to tell whether they are conscious or not therefore consciousness can’t be relevant for general intelligence.

Curiously, Star Trek I think had Data intended as an artificial person, in a context where AGI is already normal. The computers are depicted with significant AI capabilities including analysis, question-answering, generation, chat interfaces, and the holodeck (their favourite toy) is substantially better than Data at human imitation. Nobody seems to be confused about it, or especially impressed. One of the holodeck episodes centres on the holodeck outwitting Data specifically, after they inadvertently prompt it to do so. Part of Data's deal is he actually has to work his way up as a fully embodied, physically limited artificial man with personal ambitions. Really interesting to view this in hindsight from 2026!

You're misremembering. The first known use of AGI was in 1997, but that was a single, mostly unknown use in one paper. It wasn't until at least a decade later that the term started entering mainstream use after being independently reinvented in the 2000s. AGI just wasn't a term in the 90s.

It’s really not that confusing. The problem is people keep adding stuff to the definition that doesn’t really matter, and twisting it to serve themselves, then calling it confusing.

What really matters are the core aspects of intelligent behavior. Pattern recognition, planning, adaptation, etc.

It really doesn’t matter if an intelligent system is conscious, or how similar it is to commander data, or even how much economically viable work it can do.