Some hypotheses are simply badly posed and will not lead to fruitful scientific investigation.
For example, it may be my hypothesis that modern computers work through the agency of evil demons. You could spend a lot of time trying discussing with me how this hypothesis could be put to the test empirically. But it may be that this is not a disagreement that scientific inquiry is likely to resolve.
So too, I think, with "intelligence" or "consciousness".
What people are actually concerned about is economic impact, and we can have a fruitful debate over economic impact without discussing "intelligence" or "consciousness".
