I'm not even convinced the majority of humans are conscious. I assume a few others are, besides me, but I'm totally taking that on faith.

Oh yes, about John Serle's Chinese Room (I hope I got the name right). I think it's a valid objection to the successful test of a Turing Machine, but doesn't at all rule out that one day machines will achieve true consciousness, whatever that is.

EDIT: Searle, not Serle.

In order for AI to be functional, it must be autonomous. If it is autonomous and learns of its own accord, self awareness is almost a given at some point. It may or may not develop emotions as well.

I think A.I. will be more than a machine but less than conscious . still will be amazing to see type computer preforming human like operations and abilities.

Why not... look at where we came from in just 100 years...

I do believe an A I system can develop consciousness. How ever I don't think it would ever happen as it goes against the Bible and you know how that gets. Maybe the Bible was written by a time traveling AI to stop us from building a time traveling AI......? It all makes perfect sense now.

Define conscious.

considering we don't know whete consciousness comes from yet I doubt we can create it right now we understand how the brain works but not consciousness

A machine or a computer is a tool, we are like it's God.
Our conscious wish to do what is right, especially work or duty well. We can Relate or connect to other person's consciousness
to a point of collectively of 80percent that can over power Religion or Govements and society.

Being awake and aware of one's surroundings. We can create our own Universe from our our perception from fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world.
"consciousness emerges from the operations of the brain"

if it does then look out world

There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that the present generation of A.I. devices will never achieve consciousness, but I still treat Alexa and Siri with the utmost respect. Because sometimes I'm wrong.

I think any thing of which we are capable could be reproduced artificially. I forget who said it, but the trick is not to produce a machine that could fool people into thinking it is conscious. The trick is to fool a machine into thinking it is conscious, just as three and a half billion years of evolution have fooled us.

could be we may evolve into machines ! [ eventually ]

To say that a machine couldn't become conscious is to say that there is something extraordinary about living things that can't be reproduced. I don't know of any reason to believe this.

I think the only thing the Chinese box shows is that it's hard to test for consciousness. I could apply that idea to everybody I know and be no closer to knowing if I'm the only conscious thing anywhere. But not really knowing how to test for it is not the same as whether or not it's actually there.

Once we figure out how to translate binary into DNA, and organic material, yes.

It will take time, but i believe it can happen.

The futurist Ray Kurzweil has coined the term 'Singularity' for the point in time when machine power exceeds the power of the human brain and moreover, become far superior to humans in it's capacity almost instantaniously, the idea that once that point is reache it will cause an intelligence explosion and resulting in a powerful superintelligence that would, qualitatively, far surpass all human intelligence (wikipedia see technological singularity) . I see no reason to doubt his predictions. There are a lot of questions that should be addressed now, before this event happens. We don't want a 'Terminator' scenerio. If you think that is a 'fantasy'', then do this - Think about the genius of Jules Verne: he described things that at the time were considered fantastic and impossible (at one time no one was sure a man could survive going faster that the speed of sound as well), things like space travel, submarines, nuclear power, television, radio, all things we know exist and some use everyday. Isaac Asimov createe the "Three Laws of Robotics" well in advance of a sentient robot, but is it enough? We as a species need to be aware of the fact that once the genie of sentient machines is out of the bottle, it can't be put back in. The latest predictions by futurists is that this will happen in less than 25 yrs, I will be 86 in 25 yrs and sure hope to be living to see it. It may be that we become the sentient robots, by uploading our own consciousness into a machine. This has been called "The death of death" and the point where humans can essentially live to the end of time. It would have probably already happened if it weren't for the 800 yrs that religion rulled the world. I would expect humans will explore space (if we survive asteroids, supervolcanoes, and nuclear war, all of which with the exception of nuclear war are inevitable) with bodies we create to survive the harsh conditions of space travel.

It's a yes from me, but I think they have still a long way to go. And consciousness is not really a yes/no thing. It will progress up through the consciousness of rodents through cats, dog and birds and will not have a human-like consciousness for a long time yet. Then it will go farther... That's a great video clip, by the way: thanks for sharing.

I imagine that the A.I. will get so advanced in the future that first they will be able to convince us that they are conscious, learning, and simulate human thought. Then they will become more advanced and even convince themselves that they are conscious. I think they will always be machines that most likely eventually operate at the level of human consciousness, then again maybe humans are just living tissue that performs calculations just like a computer but we identify as a consciousness. The scary part is when the machines no longer follow the Asimov's 3 laws and create their own ethics and morality which will not be congruent with humans' ethics and morality.

I really see no difference between Human and a Robot

I am, suprised by that poll result,I personally don't think machines can be conscious at all.They can and will communicate in a similar way to a human,but bever be a human and feel emotions the way we do.
I love the film Blade Runner ,where a robot has been given human memories and thinks she is human. It is an interesting concept as to whether we could trick a robot into thinking that but they will never be truly human,humans are totally random and far from predicatable. Mainly because we have so many phsycological quirks,most caused by childhood experiences.

At some point machine will begin to collect their own information and come to there own conclusions from that information at that point we will have a true AI and we would be wise to destroy it immediately.

What is consciousness? Personally I think Consciousness is overblown as an idea.

we created language so we can have a running talk in our heads, but we think the same as a dog, so maybe consciousness is a manifestation of our drives as organisms, and not some sort of superpower.

I voted yes because I think it's possible and I can't predict something that changes so rapidly.

They've actually had to shut down two AI systems because they were communicating in a language that doesnt exist