The CR is equivalent to a human being asked a question, thinking about it and answering. The setup is the same thing, it’s just framed in a way that obfuscates that.

And sure, you can assume that nobody and nothing else is conscious (I think we’re talking about this rather than intelligence) and I won’t try to stop you, I just don’t think it’s a very useful stance. It kind of means that assuming consciousness or not means nothing, since it changes nothing, which is more or less what I’m saying.