"This is important, if what we want to do is populate the cosmos with good experiences."

There is a concerning utilitarian maximizing attitude at the heart of this post, that what we want to do is tile the universe with computational boxes all simulating happy minds, and that this is the end goal of AI development and consciousness research.

So many moral schools would object to this perspective. I don't think the goal of humanity should be to tile the universe with black computing boxes simulating happy experiences.