I've had a hard time reconciling why so many people hold up the concept of a conscious AI as something to aspire to. I personally feel that is so much more problematic.

Having incredibly "smart" machines is one thing but having them be sentient is a completely different thing. We can have incredible gains in productivity without ever reaching the point when we create another being.

We have trouble keeping the peace amongst ourselves as humans why on earth would we and should we throw another conscious being into the mix. A conscious being that, by the way, at the inception humans would expect to be our slave....