If you prime a model to behave as though it's sentient, and it displays a facsimile of sentience that's realistic enough to fool a reasonably bright human being, shouldn't the burden of proof be on anyone who claims the model isn't sentient? Or at the very least, shouldn't one making that claim have to propose a test that, if passed, would get them to seriously consider the possibility that the model is sentient?
I'm not claiming an affirmative one way or the other, but it does seem rather unfair to hold an AI to an apparently higher standard than we'd hold a human.
It's also worth noting that (assuming no cherry-picking) the observed output of a model represents a lower bound on its true capabilities. "Sampling can prove the presence of knowledge but not its absence" [1] and all that.