But why would sentience or consciousness be necessary for (or even relevant to) a system's utility and/or hazard? Put differently, it seems like what's really r

But why would sentience or consciousness be necessary for (or even relevant to) a system's utility and/or hazard? Put differently, it seems like what's really relevant is its cognitive ability, model of the world, decision-making skills, and so on, all so-called "easy problems". Despite the designation they're not truly easy problems to investigate; on the other hand, neuroscientists and other researchers are making steady, semi-predictable progress on these questions every year. So what role is left for sentience? Maybe it is the idea that only sentience could cause something to act "on its own", to have "intentions"? To that I would ask if any creature, sentient or otherwise, can be said to act free from its "programming", genetic, cultural, etc. Alternately maybe you think sentience would be necessary for an entity to perform unexpected actions in furtherance of subgoals (a weaker interpretation of "intention"). Or conversely: without sentience, computers can only perform actions which are trivial consequences of the orders they have been given. But, of course, even computers today do all kinds of things "automatically". If I ask for a browser tab to open on my laptop, memory gets freed and allocated, various fans turn on and off, lots more happens that would be very difficult for me to predict (even if I designed the system). Again, sentience seems entirely besides the point.