

I agree, there are two consistent points of view with regards to conciousness IMO: either it is an emergent property of systems regardless of what they are made of, so there is no reasons machines couldnt be concious even if none now are; or that conciousness is a supernatural quantity that isnt a property of mater and energy that can be studied by science.
I dissagree with the later but it is far more consistent than people who claim to be materialist but insist there is something magicial about the matter in brains that can not be replicated by other forms of matter.
With drones. A balistic missile strike is different from a nuclear missile strike only in the warhead in the missile. Firing missiles that could potentially be nukes (from the Russian perspective) from a nucelar power (the USA) at their capital is one of the few things that might actually trigger a nuclear war. Not the idiotic Russia bluster about Ukraine being given access to slightly better weapons, but a genuine possibility.