In a Nutshell - Do Robots Deserve Rights? What if machines become conscious?

When the time comes, the signs should be visible enough that we could handle this issue with common sense.

Unfortunately, for many common sense is superseded by material gain…

If you could replicate a human brain with different materials, it would still be human in every function. Ain't nothing magically sentient about proteins.
At that point we'll realize that we too are robots, just constructed from a colony of carbon-based nanomachines.