The consciousness agent theory proposes that networks of conscious agents create what we call the brain, thus providing a solution to the hard problem of consciousness.
By trying to engineer systems that closely interact with humans, our understanding of intelligence, consciousness, and free will deepens. The hope is to understand intelligence by building such systems and create the illusion of consciousness, thus learning more about these concepts.
The answer depends on whether consciousness is fundamental or emerges at some point in physical processing. If consciousness is fundamental, then AI would have a non-human conscious experience, and if it emerges, then there may be a class of conscious experiences or organisms that can be anthropomorphized enough to give them rights.
This podcast discusses the impact of human-level AI on the hard problem of consciousness and how it fundamentally changes the conversation around the topic.
Donald Knuth discusses the limitations of human knowledge, including the possibility that an AI created the universe, but he maintains that as a teacher, he does not have the expertise to pronounce on this subject.