Agreed 100%. He's brilliant, but he's not a programmer. IMO he's been tricked, in a way that Chompsky was not.
I've seen enough programmers get heads down pounding out code, and be completely out of touch on what they are building. If they can lose the big picture on simple apps, then it is not a stretch to think they could lose track on what is consciousness, or what is human.
I am also a programmer. But it does get tiring on HN to give so much credence to 'programmers'. Just because someone can debug some JavaScript doesn't make them an expert. I really doubt that many people here have traced out these algorithms and 'know' what is happening.