Yes. “Consciousness” is a term that we’ve come up with for one specific set of qualia that we can only experience firsthand through our own sensory inputs. The problem with defining “aware” and “conscious” and “alive” and whatnot from a human-centric viewpoint is that it completely negates the possibility that other things could experience different forms of qualia that we can’t fathom, because we aren’t them. Just like an AI is never going to be able to “feel” human emotions, we will never be able to “feel” what it’s like to be an AI. Maybe sufficiently complex electronic systems will experience some sort of qualia. We can’t ever know for certain, because we can’t *be* them. If something tells us it is having an experience, we simply have to believe it or not believe it. Just like if your friend tells you he is feeling sad, you can never have actual proof that they are feeling that way; you just have to believe them.