Brain cells are alive. They have that qualia that non-alive things lack. AI is not alive. Books are not alive. AI and books are similar in that they store information. They have input (you write info into them) and output (you read info from them). AI has mechanisms that allow it to process info but not meaning. But that's not life. AI has electricity running through it, and that's similar to living things. Hence the lightning strike in the amusing analogy.

Zealots desperately hoping AI will become some living god that will accept their worship or bring more meaning to their lives through their servitude of it, downvoting comments that question or challenge the idea that AI can ever achieve consciousness annoys me in the same way that all zealotry of blind-faith religions annoys me. But it's my fault for risking commenting here in a post that doesn't support the blind-faith tenet that AI will become consciousness if it isn't already. I apologize for having trespassed here. I'll see myself out.

I find it amusing to think the idea that AI will become conscious is surprisingly not so terribly different from believing your Encyclopedia Britannica series sitting on your bookshelf will wake up conscious tomorrow if it's struck by lightning during a thunderstorm tonight.