[ALittleLight]

I agree that low numbers of neurons are unlikely to lead to human-level consciousness. I have zero faith that researchers in this area won't continue to push the limits - perhaps even if they don't publish on doing so.

I see this research as a red flag "hey, we are approaching something very bad" and while the flag itself may not be a problem we should heed the warning and change direction.

All this said, my understanding is that this research is in part inspired by or associated with the phenomenon of people with encephalopathy who have greatly diminished brain volumes but are still conscious. This says to me we can't reliably predict how many neurons are necessary before creating consciousness.