Comment by kelseyfrog

It's asking the wrong question. Their phenomenological status is a function of whatever makes shareholders the most money. If it makes more money for them to be conscious then that is what they'll be.

Definitions of consciousness are not immune to economic factors. Metaphysics has always been downstream of economics. See slavery, corporate personhood, women's legal identity, child labor, moral and legal status of animals, embryos and fetuses, indigenous land rights, intellectual property, environmental entities, and data and digital identity.