The other guy is right. They are as conscious as sand formed into any circuit board with electricity running across them. It is an insane mistake to conflate intelligence with consciousness. Substrate independence is a preposterous assumption.
These outraged denials you're spouting are based on nothing but emotion. You simply don't know - neither do I, neither does anyone. So stop acting like you do.
What’s emotional is explaining to adults something that should be grasped by the age of 10, but we’re all going to need to understand this very soon.