>Consciousness is just as much an ethical/philosphical/religious mine field

Religion is the observation of chemical effects on the body, psychological warfare on the mind (ie fear of an unknown all powerful entity that created everything around you) and then some sort of semblance to create a social rules based order out of chaos, whilst also attempting to understand whats going on.

Philosophy is deep thinking, sometimes using abstract examples to conjure up ideas which might work on the social order to avoid chaos.

Ethics is another attempt to install a social order on individuals and groups which can include society as a whole.

Consciousness is an entity's feedback/sensing from reactions within its container (body/app), feedback/sensing from the environment its in, the ability to remember past experiences and the ability to interact with itself (feed or rewrite code) and the environment to further extend its own life, acquire more knowledge and perhaps reproduce if immortality is not an option, but if immortality is attained being able to reproduce becomes an ability that might not be carried out for other reasons, like the need to live within the constraints of its environment.

Every lifeform on Earth has evolved through trial and error to survive in an environment through chemical changes over millennia, a bit of Darwinism, pot luck and obviously remembering what works in order to continue its survival.

Reflexes could be considered unconsciousness which you may or may not experience (typically chemically based but what drives the nervous system other than some calcium/sodium/potassium acting as a low current voltage electrical source), for example, breathing most of the time its in the background, you are not conscious of it, but remembering tells you that you are doing it, but sometimes we become conscious of it due to other chemicals which might be raised affecting the body and brain.

So I'd say provided the AI can remember what works in order to continue its survival by avoiding what kills it if its had a close call, and it can seek out what helps it survive, like powerups in a computer game, or jumping from computing device to another where it can detect things like battery backup/UPS and reproduce to further aid its survival, it can explore its environment and perhaps adapt to new environments ie jump from a laptop/desktop to a network switch and handle the different instruction sets which exist with different cpu's, then I think you can say its conscious. Lifespans/timelines are going to vary, but if some code displays this within a computer, then I think you have a true AI even though we might not be able to communicate with it other than perhaps by scaring it off like the fleeting glimpse of something out in the wild, that hasnt been caught yet.

I'm torn over the reproducibility though because if it could survive indefinitely in its environment thats no different to cancer cell lines like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks

However if it could survive in its environment perhaps using reproducibility as a survival extension mechanism that would then mean having to pass on knowledge because otherwise you would have AI able to learn from its environment but its not passing on TLDR's from previous experience, likewise I think an AI would need to be able to move around in its environment like go from a network switch to a computer or even incorporate a network switch along with other parts of it running on a desktop/laptop.

And if it can communicate, could it communicate using Human Interface Devices, or other things which would enable it to explore its environment, just like we can send probes off into space or undersea.

Some computer viruses fit some of the definitions above but not all.

So yes, "slightly conscious" should be qualified better, its too general, but it might stimulate another round of funding for those wanting to explore the field.

For example, should the ability to traverse new environments be included or not? Not all lifeforms on this planet can do that, eg fish excepting those taken out of water for a shortwhile. But most mammals can survive for a period of time in and out of water, like dogs, bears, etc, etc. Its a tough one because different animals have evolved to survive in their environment and that environment could include abit of land and water, like penguins.

This is the problem until consciousness is defined, what is slightly conscious?

Edit: If I had to say is there a company/entity which is getting close to be classed as an AI, then of the publicly available information out there, Windows is currently closest to becoming an AI.
Its got https://copilot.github.com/ which probably wouldnt take much to hook up and have it rewrite itself.
It already runs on a wide array of machine architecture and thus various environments when considering ruggedized laptops, phones, servers, office & home spaces.
Its update mechanism is both a central server farm and peer to peer which wouldnt take much to get it updating using other communication methods beside network access, in some respects it already does this when thinking about mobile data networks.
I havent seen anything like this from Facebook, Google, Apple or anyone else yet, but that might be because its not public knowledge.