I think the whole discussion about consciousness misses the simple point that LLMs might just work better if we treat them as if they were conscious.

Maybe it's a coincidence that the company doing this also tends to have the best models (and other factors certainly play a strong role). But I think it's plausible that focusing on "model welfare" actually makes models better at their tasks.

Yes.

They're trained on human behavior. Whether or not they genuinely have feelings - they sure as heck behave as though they do.

And when you treat people well, they do better work for you.

No brainer.