Let me ask you. If we invented an AGI that was as smart as us based on much larger nets (perhaps with one or two algorithmic tweaks on current approaches) trained on much more data, running on commodity hardware, would it be conscious? If yes, why can't our current nets be slightly conscious?
If you don't agree that consciousness exists on a spectrum, and instead think that something is either conscious or not, then simply replace the words 'slightly conscious' with 'conscious'.
We know it's probably a real thing because we experience it, and it's an extremely important open question whether an AGI on hardware will have "it" too.
The answer to the question will have large ethical implications a few decades into the future. If they can suffer just like animals can, we really need to know that so we don't accidentally create a large amount of suffering. If they can't suffer, just like rocks probably can't, this doesn't have to be a concern of ours.
We are not going to be able to say with any great precision what we are trying to say with the word 'consciousness' until we have more information. In lieu of that, what we can do is say what phenomena seem to be in need of explanations before we can compile a definition.
At this point, opinions that human-level consciousness is either just more of what has been done so far, or cannot possibly be just that, are just opinions.
My comment on this for several decades has been that we don't know enough to address consciousness. We need to get common sense right first. Common sense, in this context, is getting through the next 30 seconds without screwing up. Automatic driving is the most active area there. Robot manipulation in unstructured environments is a closely related problem. Neither works well yet. Large neural nets are not particularly good at either of these problems.
We're missing something important. Something that all the mammals have. People have been arguing whether animals have consciousness for a long time, at least back to Aristotle. Few people claim that animals don't have some degree of common sense. It's essential to survival. Yet AI is terrible at implementing common sense. This is a big problem.
And that's still framing it as if philosophizing is something to be avoided, a waste of time. I disagree with that sentiment. In particular, we can't really avoid thinking about consciousness even without an agreed-upon definition, because our beliefs on consciousness influence our actions. In particular, debates about the rights of animals are heavily influenced by our beliefs on their degree of consciousness.
IMO, "shut up and X" is code for "I don't enjoy thinking about the problem you're presenting (and perhaps I resent you a bit for making me think about it)". It's perfectly fine to just come out and say that you don't enjoy working on this particular problem. But that doesn't imply that the problem isn't worth thinking about.