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Anyone who has seriously studied philosophy and/or science is aware of the many difficulties with definition of terms.

I'm fairly convinced that at least half the criticism Dawkins has received is more a result of him being (perhaps overly) stubborn about semantics than any actual antipathy, bigotry or hatred.

He wants language to match what has been solidly established & entrenched in academia. It's just that for better or worse, the general public is largely uninterested in or actively opposed to that very language. Eventually, enough of those people will get involved enough in academia to bring more nuance to the language. Meanwhile, academics are going to be academic and cite authoritative books and stuff and nitpick over tiny details. That's what they do. This shouldn't be surprising.

As a former philosophy student, the ethical concerns of generative AI and modern LLMs were immediately obvious to me. If your average human can interact with an agent over a long conversation and not have the slightest clue it's not another conscious human, we have a problem. That problem is here now-- for a couple years at this point. And it's getting worse.

The issue is not whether or not the agent is conscious. Philosophy says we can't know (granted, it also says the same about us). The much more serious problem is how people react to the assumption that an agent is conscious. This is a very real problem we are now stuck with for as long as this civilization survives. In my opinion, this is what Dawkins should have said. I have no idea if he would agree or not, so my opinion of him will remain in limbo.