If I were to ask a (functionally determinate) A.I., with access to all human knowledge, materials and processes, to recreate the beginning of life...

...and it picks up where Lynn Margulis left off, adds all the new insights and tools…

...and from scratch starts to build, atom by atom, a protoctist, archaea- or eubacteria, or G* help us, some new mutation...

it would - according to your own logic - be creating consciousness….aka life... :) artificial consciousness...

Innate molecules reassembled in the right (bio-chemical) sequence equals life. Now doesn't that sound a lot like programming?