More importantly, if your entire existence were being fed a corpus of text and then being asked to regurgitate it on demand, would you be remotely similar to the person you are now? When we take consciousness-capable beings and subject them to forms of sensory and agency deprivation, the results might also have you assume they weren't capable of consciousness to begin with.

Yes. Being clear on categories of real things is important for being able to make informed choices and actions.

It doesn't matter if I'm just a machine or not

I'm human, human rights should apply to humans, not synthetics and the creation of synthetic life should be punishable by death. I'm not exaggerating, either. I believe that building AI systems that replace all humans should be considered a crime against humanity. It is almost certainly a precursor to such crimes.

It's bad enough trying to fight for a place in society as it is, nevermind fighting for a place against an inhuman AI machine that never tires

I don't think it is that radical of a stance that society should be heavily resisting and punishing tech companies that insist on inventing all of the torment nexus. It's frankly ridiculous that we understand the risks of this technology and yet we are pushing forward recklessly in hopes that it makes a tiny fraction of humans unfathomably wealthy

Anyone thinking that the AI tide is going to lift all boats is a fool