> Where there's an open question is in whether you're commingling the notion of intelligence with consciousness

I’m absolutely commingling these two things and that is an excellent point.

Markov chains and other algorithms that can generate text can give the appearance of intelligence without any kind of understanding or consciousness.

I’m not personally certain of consciousness is even requisite for intelligence, given that as far as we know consciousness is an emergent property stemming from some level of problem solving ability.