From what I learned about neural networks (not much really), any specific NN is not a computer program, in our progammer’s sense. It’s a higher order data in a commonly used format/structure reducible by a computer program when combined with an input. You may rightly claim equivalence, but regular people usually imagine loops, conditions, some low-code-like schematic diagrams or a cryptic text when you say that. At least that’s what I think most of them do. They definitely don’t think of hyperdimensional gradient descent optimization matrices or what’s used there today.

While I agree that ChatGPT isn’t sentient (in however broad definition of this term we’d like to use that could still make sense), neither is it a traditional program, nor is it non-sentient because it’s a program, imo.