The biggest obstacle is that each robotics lab has its own idea of what a conscious robot looks like. There are also moral implications to building robots that have consciousness. Will they have rights, like in Bicentennial Man?
Considerations about conscious robots have been the domain of science fiction for decades. Isaac Asimov wrote several novels, including I, Robot, that examined the implications from the perspectives of law, society, and family, raising a lot of moral questions. Experts in ethical technology have considered and expanded upon these questions as scientists like those in the Columbia University lab work toward building more intelligent machines.
Science fiction has also brought us killer machines like in The Terminator, and conscious robots sound like a good way to have some. Humans might learn bad ideas and act upon them, and there is no reason to believe that robots will not fall into the same trap. Some of science’s greatest minds have warned against getting carried away with artificial intelligence.
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