>But if it turns out that LLMs are conscious
That is not how it works. You cannot scientifically test for consciousness, it will always be a guess/agreement, never a fact.
The only way this can be solved is quite simple, as long as it operates on the same principles a human brain operates AND it says is conscious, then it is conscious.
So far, LLMs do not operate on the same principles a human brain operates. The parallelism isn't there, and quite clearly the hardware is wrong, and the general suborgans of the brain are nowhere to be found in any LLM, as far as function goes, let alone theory of operation.
If we make something that works like a human brain does, and it says it's conscious, it most likely is, and deserves any right that any humans benefits from. There is nothing more to it, it's pretty much that basic and simple.
But this goes against the interests of certain parties which would rather have the benefits of a conscious being without being limited by the rights such being could have, and will fight against this idea, they will struggle to deny it by any means necessary.
Think of it this way, it doesn't matter how you get superconductivity, there's a lot of materials that can be made to exhibit the phenomenon, in certain conditions. It is the same superconductivity even if some stuff differs. Theory of operation is the same for all. You set the conditions a certain way, you get the phenomenon.
There is no "can act conscious but isn't" nonsense, that is not something that makes any sense or can ever be proven. You can certainly mimic consciousness, but if it is the result of the same theory of operation that our brains work on, it IS conscious. It must be.