That's not the point. You know exactly how to define being conscious and aware- it's your subjective experiencing of the world and of your inner states. The problem is that being a subjective experiencing, there is no way to communicate it to the outside world.
Maybe that's not as common with HN folks, but most other humans do.
But you have zero proof that their words aren't a confabulation, you can only know than when you output a similar set of words you had a subjective mind state they represent.
The very best you can do is define human consciousness as requiring the functions of a human brain, and try to figure out (decide/agree) the chances that something which is working loosely on the same principles is or isn't conscious.
At the end of the day it will always be an agreement, never scientifically proven as fact.