The common consensus is that bacteria are not conscious. But some bacteria are attracted to, or repulsed by light. What, then, is being attracted or repulsed?
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They’re more like machines.
I can make a little robotic car with a light sensor that stops and reverses when it detects light, or tries to turn to face a bright source of light. That is behavior, but does not require consciousness.
In this case, the bacteria have cell structures that change size or shape when exposed to light. Those changes in size or shape cause the bacteria to change how it’s moving. But the bacteria isn’t “thinking” or “making decisions”. It’s just a pile of biological machinery that’s designed to react the same way every time to stimulus.
There’s not an easy definition for what makes a creature “conscious”, but in this case we can say a conscious creature might realize sometimes there is a reason to stay in bright light even if the bacteria would normally avoid it. These bacteria will never behave that way, thus we do not think they’re conscious.
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