I like the way your thinking, or not thinking if im interpreting your statement right. I dont have much to add but this story does feel like a lot of noise just like stevet stated.
Honestly just threw some experiences using gpt in the past, even before the recent updates ive felt its more potent in that neural soup of its then even some experts give it credence for. An example was that paper a few months back stating Gpt couldnt reason, by definition it does reason- how well is always a question for debate, but even ants reason. Reasoning doesnt mean it has sentience however thats just the definition.
I am excited to learn more about this when the air starts clearing of speculation and we can see some facts and evidence for ourselves.