I think "intelligence" or "consciousness" aren't well-defined terms yet, they're more like pointers to something that needs to be explained.

I do not feel that intelligence is at all mysterious or confusing, per what I say about it in this post. Beyond what I say about it and what Eliezer says about it when he talks about efficient cross-domain optimization, what is there to understand about intelligence? I don't see why there is some bar of artificial intelligence we have to clear before we are allowed to say we understand intelligence. There must be X such that we had theories of X before constructing something that captured X. Perhaps X=light? X=electromagnetism?

We can't build an intelligent machine or a conscious machine yet, so it seems rash to throw out the words.

I do not see why building an X machine is a necessary or sufficient condition to throw out X.