[narag]

- Does human (or superhuman) thinking require consciousness?

I was going to write this exactly. I believe these things think. They're just not alive.

- What even is consciousness?

My advice: stay as far as you can from that concept. Wittgenstein already noticed that many philosophical questions are nonsense and specifically mentioned how consciousness as felt from the inside is hopefully incompatible with any observation we make from the outside.

BS concepts like qualia are all the rage now, but ultimately useless.