Saeculum

That's fair, though taking the idea that AI is people because of Data from Star Trek isn't inherently absurd. If a machine existed that demonstrated all the capabilities and external phenomena as Data in real life, I would want it treated as a person.

The authors might be delusional about the capabilities of their machine in particular, but in different physical circumstances to what's most likely happening here, they wouldn't be wrong.

Just because we can't do something with the tools we have available to us now, does not mean that the thing is impossible itself.

Optimistic, if not rationally grounded.

because qualia are fundamentally a subjective phenomena, and there is no concievable way to arrive at subjective phenomena via objective physical quantitites/measurements.

Having done some quick reading, I can see that qualia are definitionally subjective, but I would question how anyone could assert that they possess internal mental experiences that "no amount of purely physical information includes.", or that such a thing can even exist with any level of confidence. Certainly not enough confidence to structure an argument around. The justification seems to be the idea that because we cannot do something now, that thing cannot be done. I don't find that convincing.

This might be going too far into the analogy, but I think the problem with a comparison to a radio is that if you examine the radio down to its smallest part, and then assemble a second radio, that radio will behave in the same as the first.
Presumably as well, with enough examination, it would come to be understood that the voices coming from the radio are produced somewhere else, and there would be no reason for anyone to think that the voices themselves are appearing from an intangible and inherently subjective origin. If consciousness is essentially a puppeteer for the physical human body, that doesn't preclude consciousness existing physically somewhere else, and that the "broadcaster" isn't something capable of examination or imitation.

The whole argument seems to boil down to "maybe consciousness doesn't work the way science would currently suggest it does." but doesn't present any evidence that the consciousness is somehow unsolvable.

but to assume causal relationship is intellectually lazy.

Instead, assuming that an undetectable intangible and fundamentally improvable mechanism is behind consciousness without proof is worse than lazy, it's magical thinking. While I don't think you could ever prove that that wasn't the case, it should only seriously be entertained once every other option has been thoroughly exhausted.

(Reading this back, this feels quite confrontational. I don't intend it to be, but I lack the ability to word it in the tone that I would prefer.)

Is it really sad to wish for that? There are plenty of more positive representations of such things that are seen in the sci-fi/horror genre.

Sci-Fi is ultimately speculative fiction, an idea of how the world might be, and while it might be a bit silly to act like whatever speculative fiction you have in mind is an accurate representation of the future without very strong evidence, I'm not sure I would describe it as sad.

By that way of reasoning, the replicates aren't people because they are characters written by the author same as any other.

They are as much fiction as sentient machines are science fiction.

I don't know about you, but I have an actual inner live, emotions, thoughts and dreams that are far removed from a rote, algorithmic processing of information.

How do you know?

How can you know that live emotions, thoughts and dreams cannot and do not arise from a system of algorithms?

I think there's an important difference with the two examples, where one contracts everything we understand about the way the universe works, and the other does not.

It's a lifestyle sweaty

Radios to what, some kind of dimension of consciousness?

here's the task of people that want to prove that the human brain is a meat computer: Explain, in exact detail, how (i.e. the procsses by which) Qualia, (i.e. internal, subjective, mental experiences) arise from external, objective, physical phenomena.

hint: you can't.

Why not? I understand that we cannot, at this particular moment, explain every step of the process and how every cause translates to an effect until you have consciousness, but we can point at the results of observation and study and less complex systems we understand the workings of better and say that it's most likely that the human brain functions in the same way, and these processes produce Qualia.

It's not absolute proof, but there's nothing wrong with just saying that from what we understand, this is the most likely explanation.

Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're saying here, why is the idea that it can't be done the takeaway rather than it will take a long time for us to be able to say whether or not it's possible?

and the usual neuroscience task of merely correlating internal experiences to external brain activity measurements will fundamentally and definitionally never be able to prove causation, even hypothetically.

Once you believe you understand exactly what external brain activity leads to particular internal experiences, you could surely prove it experimentally by building a system where you can induce that activity and seeing if the system can report back the expected experience (though this might not be possible to do ethically).

As a final point, surely your own argument above about an illusion requiring an observer rules out concluding anything along the lines of point 2?

preventing it being used to create porn of unwilling people,

Cat's out of the bag on that one. It's illegal to share in a lot of places, but the models to do it are free, small and can be run on a personal computer.