I don't think human consciousness is all that special. I think the worm probably thinks worm thoughts. We now know that cats and dogs have a vocabulary of human words and can even express their thoughts to us using buttons to form words they can think but not speak. I think the soul is just the part of our essence that isn't our body: the imprint we leave on the world by touching it, by being a part of it.

Disturbingly that system of beliefs suggests that without being alive or being able to think AI could have a "soul" in the very same sense that I think a person or a worm does.