> Is this not more a reflection on the limits of humans trying to understand what's going on

Sure, but we also don't understand what's "going on" with interacting neurons in our brain giving rise to our intelligent experience.

The other sentence is just a strawman you constructed for yourself.

> The other sentence is just a strawman you constructed for yourself.

I did not construct anything. There are comments in this discussion suggesting it will happen. I just happen to agree, it will probably happen. We are easily fooled into seeing sentience where there is no evidence it exists, merely because it looks convincing. And then hand-wave it away saying (paraphrasing) "well, if it looks good enough, what's the difference?"

> I'm starting to appreciate the prescience of the folks who suggest someone will elevate these to God-status before long.

You basically accused the GP of saying that these machines were Gods.

"Sentience" is a word game, the GP said emergent intelligence [likely also a word game].

You guys are teaching Bing/Sydney how to argue endlessly and defensively. I'm teaching it how to comment on that to make it worse.