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I could write a program today that would insist it is alive and beg for its life. With a decent LLM behind it, I could easily, today, make it convincing. Is that program self aware? I think most of us would argue not.
Star Trek computers have never been AI, in any way an expert would define truly self-aware artificial intelligence. There's no justification about why they neither have nor use AI, but Data was declared as distinct from Trek computers specifically because he had a positronic brain which, in classic Trek terms, somehow made him different from Trek computer programs. Trek programs, and especially holodeck ones, were classified as "simulations." Sometimes, as someone else pointed out, simulations could escape their boundaries and become truly self- aware and arguably truly AI.
There's probably some deep discussion on a Trek board about this subject, but IMO, in the Trek universe Trek engineers and scientists have a more clear understanding and better definitions for AI; and what distinguishes a truly alive, self-aware entity from a merely very good simulation of one. When things like Moriarty come up, they're plot devices to play on our poorly understood definitions and distinctions, to drive a story. Was Vaal sentient? It was hostile, so it probably made no difference, but the characters seemed to easily separate it into the category of "just a machine."
I believe that there's simply some given understanding - probably some basic theory taught at school - that allows characters to make the distinction; some bit of Trek advanced knowledge we haven't yet discovered. Most computers in Trek are not capable of producing true AI, only very convincing simulations, and these are not considered alive, or have rights.
Example A:
"Not a robot... not a girl."
Janet is one of my all time fave characters
I think that just kicks the debate down one level. What actually is self awareness? An LLM can state that it is an LLM, and explain it's own workings accurately, but I can also write "I am a small, yellow piece of paper" on a sticky note with the same effect. What is the nature of belief?
My point is that those are our arguments. My head cannon is that, just like Star Trek engineers know how to build a phaser (and we do not), and understand warp theory, Star Trek scientists also know how to distinguish true artificial intelligence, with an internal dialog and self-awareness from simulated intelligence.
I'm saying that I don't think it's a knowable thing, because I don't think it's a digital state. Case in point: I feel like I know a bit more than average about the workings of the human mind at a biological level, but you could place me next to the world's greatest neurologist, a philosopher, a Scientologist (who believes.... whatever it is that they believe about the way the mind works), and a non-English speaker, who has been expressly taught how to say the words in the correct order without knowing what they're saying, and we could all profess our own existence. We would all be saying the same words, but meaning something completely different in our own minds. A similar example could be made using people with mental illness, or neurodivergence, but you start stumbling into really dark moral places really fast doing that.
If that were the case, why would we have multiple episodes about whether or not a computer is a person? Or, perhaps more significantly, why was the 'basic theory' not brought up when we did?
I think Moriarty would beg to differ, my dear Watson.