>Anthropomorphizing the AI is a convenient excuse to take responsibility away from companies that are building and wielding it.

That's completely at odds with itself. If people are generally convinced that AI is conscious, then companies building and wielding AI are doing what exactly? Enslaving an intelligent being?

>Have all the philosophical debates about consciousness you want, but we need to treat and regulate the AI in front of us for what it is – an advanced computer, a tool, a weapon.

Sure, but that's not really the point, right? If we ever get to a point where enough people are convinced that AI is conscious, then we're at the point where all of this is up for debate. If anything, such an expectation would almost warrant hard stops on the development of advanced AI.

>You wouldn’t feel a different way about a nuclear bomb just because someone stuck googly eyes on it.

If that nuclear bomb could convince me it was a conscious being capable of independent thought, emotions, etc., then I would definitely feel different about it. Presumably, that nuclear bomb would have some opinions about its own existence and how it wants to live its own life. If it turns out that it wants to detonate and destroy as much as possible, then we'd just handle it like we would any human who also wants to do the same thing: make sure they can't, up to and including end their life. Doesn't seem too hard to reconcile.