The hard problem of consciousness as a possible source of superintelligent morality

I've been thinking about a connection that doesn't seem to get much attention: the hard problem of consciousness might be one of the most practically important open questions in AI safety - and not for the reasons you'd expect. Here's the basic idea. Instrumental convergence tells us that a sufficiently intelligent agent, whatever its goals, will develop strong reasons to avoid permanently destroying valuable capacities. Things that are gone forever can't be recovered, re-evaluated, or compensated for. That's not a moral claim - it's just logic. Now consider human consciousness.