You're an excellent writer and thinker!
My thoughts:
I agree with you that Ava isn't conscious, however I will provide a devil's advocate argument and then solve it.
Devils advocate:
There are humans who display this same lack of empathy and kill people.
However, I find that they lack a component of consciousness (if it is indeed possible for them to have absolutely no empathy, serial killers for example are usually reenacting traumas that they can't get over, so something more is going on for them).
Someone that truly lacked empathy in my opinion is lacking a component of consciousness, the ability to feel others emotions.
I'll take it back around though and also say there are probably levels of consciousness and who is to say humans ourselves aren't spread across them.
Hmmm yes, that is a good point.
It seems that processes such as empathy exist on a spectrum within humans. Perhaps such individuals do not fully lack empathy but experience it to a much lesser degree then what we would consider to be average. That seems to be what you are saying - "levels of consciousness." If so then i agree.
Feel free to correct me if I misunderstood.
Thanks for the comment :)
Exactly what I'm saying! I like how you seek to understand, no wonder you're good at analysis.
Please keep writing, I very much look forward to your next piece.
Thanks for the support. I really appreciate it :)