Yeah, well just say that outright from the start. People have a lot of AI arguments that ultimately boil down to non-materialism but for some reason tend to hide that. Maybe they don't feel comfortable arguing for it.

Disclaimer: I am a materialist.

One of the eye-opening developments of the last six months as AI consciousness has become a mainstream question is noting that, when push comes to shove, it seems like many more people than I realized are dualists and believe an immortal soul is required to have consciousness and intelligence. And as you said, like in the case above they are evasive about this at first and only admit it when pressed.