Lets assume we develop the capacity to create virtual worlds that are near indistinguishable from the real world. We hook you up into a machine and you now find yourself in what effectively is a paraller reality where you get to be the king of your own universe (if you so desire). Nothing is off limits - everything you’ve ever dreamt of is possible. You can be the only person there, you can populate it with unconscious AI that appears consciouss or you can have other people visit your world and you can visit theirs aswell as spend time in “public worlds” with millions of other real people.
Would you try it and do you think you’d prefer it over real world? Do you see it as a negative from individual perspective if significant part of the population basically spend their entire lives there?
I’m saying that appears conscious and is conscious could very well be the same thing, we don’t know, so in this imaginary world, I would not trust anyone who told me “don’t worry, you can torture them, they are not actually conscious”.
If we have technology that enables such virtual reality there’s a good chance we have an answer to the hard problem of consciousness aswell. Again, that’s why I said that they appear consciouss. They’re programmed in such way but we know it’s just an illusion.
I totally see where you’re coming from though and I agree with you. There’s also that even if we knew for absolute certain that they’re not consciouss it would still take a literal psychopath to treat them the way they do on West World for example and even if you’re not morally doing anything wrong I’d still think twice wether I want to hang with someone that’s capable of acting that way. However if you are that kind of person then I’d rather have you take out your anger and fulfill your sadistic needs on a unconsciouss AI than real people.