Fortunately for us, consciousness is not something we can make in a computer.
We have to teach robots what a door is. And then what a door knob is, and then how to work with those things. And still, the robot does not really understand inside and outside.
Mystics and meditators can tell you that there is something more beyond this 3D reality. That our thoughts are not in our brain. And so, the entire thought structure that we just build a complex enough computer, and viola, life... just doesn't pan out. At that point, we may be able to create robot machines instead of flesh and blood machines that we call our body.
But, they would be slow and clunky, even if they worked, because the flesh and blood machine has many layers that doctors and scientists still call "superstition." Even when many scientists have photographed some of these layers, the scientists still scoff.
Further, many of our senses seem to send signals back in time so that our brain processes them at the time they happen, not at the time + time to transmit + time to process.
So, these people thinking about these things should really work on their fears. Find out where they are coming from. That would be a good use of their time. Else, they are just trying to reinvent the wheel, before reinventing the car that mystics are already driving around in.
RE: A.I. Is Scary Because It Implies We Might Afterall Have No Soul