FORGET CONSCIOUSNESS. “When people talk about the singularity, when people talk about superintelligent AI, they’re not talking about sentience or consciousness. They’re talking about superhuman ability to make high-quality decisions.” (Stuart Russell, a computer scientist and founder of the Center for Intelligent Systems at the University of California).
http://www.techinsider.io/artificial-intelligence-machine-consciousness-expert-stuart-russell-future-ai-2015-7