So how do we get from "machines may get really good at faking things to human perception" to "machines themselves can have human-like (or 'better') perception"?
The question is so-called consciousness arising out of machines, not machines deceiving human consciousness.
Even then, that deception still doesn't prove equivalency of simulated and real things, unless we're adopting an extreme and self-contradictory subjectivist epistemology.
People seem to way overcomplicate consciousness, especially in machines.
Where does a running video game exist? It's a simulation in the hardware. Where is the consciousness in a human brain, again it's electrical signals in our brain.
At the end of the day a system is what it does. Once it starts simulating the human mind in ways that appear human then we're at the point of saying a plane has to flap its wings or it's not flying.
The question is so-called consciousness arising out of machines, not machines deceiving human consciousness.
Even then, that deception still doesn't prove equivalency of simulated and real things, unless we're adopting an extreme and self-contradictory subjectivist epistemology.