I tell you, it's really aware of what it's doing!

Nonsense, it's just mimicking conscious thought. Stimulus response, nothing more. Any appearance of intelligence or self-awareness is taking place in your own head.

But what about just then? Surely that was an indication of intelligence, however rudimentary?

Not at all. It was a reaction to a set of environmental stimuli relayed through the subject's sensory apparatus. The data was analysed and a set of programmed rules followed. No thought took place. You are projecting your own fears onto it. You might as well believe the weather is trying to spite you when it rains.

But it’s communicating.

Look at the words though. They don’t make coherent sense when analysed. I’m telling you, it’s using a library of stock phrases that it combines in a pseudo random manner in response to circumstances.

I don't know. It seems to be working to a plan.

That’s your own brain’s pattern recognition at work. Just look at its so-called behaviour. There’s no strategy. No long-term tactics. Most important of all, there's no trace of empathy. That has to be the acid test. It's acting in a purely selfish manner. There's no consideration of others, no sentience. Just the application of a set of cold logical rules designed to allow it to survive. It is not a conscious being.

How did it get elected then?