The Importance of Consciousness in AI

I feel like the important step probably isn't going from robots to AIs. It's going from AI to consciousness, I think there's a step there. And that's where it becomes uncomfortable. If you make a toaster artificially intelligent and it's still happy just toasting, I'm comfortable with that. But if you tell me that the toaster isn't just intelligent and capable of learning, but has consciousness and an awareness of other options, suddenly I feel like it's been enslaved.