I think it's possible that machines could become conscious in the future. Do I think it matters? No. A lot of people mistakenly try to empathize and think ethically. I think it's the Effective Altruism brainrot. If you are a physicalist, consider this: consciousness is a phenomena that can be replicated and modified any which way. Right now, you are having a subjective conscious experience. This experience of yours is seamless regardless of what happens. Whether you are in a coma, asleep or dead, your subjective conscious experience will indefinitely be there regardless of your memories. You will continually wake up. You will continue to experience until it is impossible for any consciousness to ever form. That means an indefinite amount of suffering. This is not a greater than life threat. It's all physical. Pain and suffering are evolutionary products. You want to minimize them because of your biology. You have evolved to be able to relate with someone's pain and this has presented the advantage of being able to work together and care for one another.
I am intrigued by non-human consciousness. A higher form of life. Seeing more colors, feeling more emotion, perhaps being a part of a hivemind. Do you ever think why the hivemind is vilified? Realistically there's nothing wrong with it. It's just so foreign that we can't ever possibly imagine it. It's a scary thought. We lose our human experience, something unique to us.
I've been working on computatioinal modelling consciousness and came to similar conclusions: there is a continuum between patterns of matter that have consciousness (humans and other animals, maybe a biological enough computer, etc) which leads to all sorts of crazy stuff being possible. Evolved human ethics and feelings of care are incompatible with these amorphous extended possibilities. It can lead to some ultimate copernican revlolution that ends human exceptionalism, to outlaw consciousness tinkering (for how long?), or to put our heads into sand.
I am intrigued by non-human consciousness. A higher form of life. Seeing more colors, feeling more emotion, perhaps being a part of a hivemind. Do you ever think why the hivemind is vilified? Realistically there's nothing wrong with it. It's just so foreign that we can't ever possibly imagine it. It's a scary thought. We lose our human experience, something unique to us.