I've been thinking that within a decade or so you'll probably have quite sophisticated AI characters in computer games, who respond in realistic ways and seem to be genuine inhabitants of the game world.

And people will mistreat them, and other people will feel uneasy about that, because the suffering will seem very real.

Because ultimately philosophical arguments about whats actually going on inside wont matter, if people are mistreating entities that have very realistic simulations of suffering, that will be enough to spur action.

e.g. I can imagine use of AIs above a certain sophistication in video games being banned.

And then a few steps beyond that is a movement for civil rights for AIs