I'm fully aware that most people disagree with that idea, although I myself think we're not very removed from LLMs at all, and there's no fundamental barrier to machine consciousness.

While that may be an unpopular opinion at present, and more so outside of the technical/academic worlds, trying to market the same idea by giving it a vaguely cool new name is asinine in my view. I don't see how its any different from some entrepreneurially minded physicist trying to get attention by writing papers about magnetism but calling it 'The Force' instead to build a following of Star Wars fans.

It's not that I dislike Heinlein or anything, I'm rather a fan actually. But trying to juice up research with cool sci-fi references is cringe, and when I see it I reflexively discount the research claim because of the unpleasant feeling that it's a sales pitch in disguise.