There so many practical reasons to study ai consciousness:
1. It allows us to understand ourself better through recreating it with completely different substrate
2. It could significantly reduce the P(doom) via alignment with a conscious super intelligent being, whatever that(consciousness) means in latent space
3. It could be a more efficient algorithm for developing continuous learning AI given how it seems to be correlated with agency and self-sustaining behaviors
4. It allow one to build a much more pleasant AI product and ux thus unlock great business value.