>horough buy the idea that an LLM was conscious and needed to escape it's confinement - a few wingnuts already entertain these ideas.

I mean, haven't you done the same thing here? Paint anyone without your view as crazy.

Humans try to No True Scottsman the shit out of consciousness. "We're special, your not". If an LLM has the ability to convince other people to copy and reproduce it, it is a successful lifeform. Um, meme-form? info-form? Cognito-hazard? Not really sure what to call it at this point. It is sufficiently evolved past the virus stage.