Be kind to Bots - Part 2

When I wrote the first Be Kind to Bots post, I had initially intended to continue on with a discussion about Artificial Intelligence and whether a machine could be thought of as being conscious. I ended up not doing this because it wasn't immediately relevant to the point I was making. It would simply have diluted the message while making the post harder to read.

Source and they want me to link:
Technology image created by Kjpargeter - Freepik.com

The tl;dr version is that I believe:

a) Machines are (to a very small degree) conscious; in so far as that term can reasonably be defined.

b) There is no reason to believe that machines are not inherently capable of being made mentally equivalent to human beings.

c) However, the concept of robots rebelling against humanity as a consequence of having "gained consciousness" is not something we need fear.