I think there are two parts to the question. One is that assigning machines to the category of conscious as it is usually understood would result in many proble

I think there are two parts to the question. One is that assigning machines to the category of conscious as it is usually understood would result in many problematic things (things that would be bad for people and animals fwiw). The other is that binary "is it conscious" is a poor way to the question "should we assign societal right to this sort of entity/creature". We humans should conserve animals because we have intimate, natural relations with animals and plants, not because they satisfy the binary of conscious or not. Removing invasive species is an ethical things as well as allowing one sentient non-human to eat another sentient non-human animal. Any "conscious machine" we might create by accident would be an alien entity akin to extremely invasive organism relative to human and non-human life and so it would be irresponsible in the extreme to create such a thing. And it's inevitable that people will try to deal with these issues using the confused category "consciousness" and so it's better to just "no, not conscious, no".