Automata - Self-aware?

[Ettrick]

I'm wondering what the general opinion is on the state of consciousness of automata.  If they are self-aware and manufactured will their perspective on life be different to ours?  Will humanity lapse into a sort of 'neuvo-sclaveur', or revived slavery, on the grounds that they have no soul so we have no worries?

 

What would an automaton think if it were the only survivor of some sort of catastrophe leaving it isolated for a long period but eventually finding humans and other automata?  Say a colonial factory producing 'New Men' were to explode and destroy the settlement and settlers leaving only this individual to put the finishing touches on its body then construct its understanding of ts world.... Then to find the larger world as we understand it.  Cognitive dissonance?  Cogogenative dissonance?  Who would be the Darwin in that mind?  What would lend weight to its understanding of existence?

 

What if all the carbon-based inhabitants died and the metallers were left on their own with myths of the soft ones but no evidence thereof?  Would a metaller meet humans at some point and flirt? fear? fight?  Worship?

[Xeno Gilder]

But does self awareness necessarily denote having emotions?

[1ggz6gmpf7rwy]

And here is a link to the complete text of Ted Chiang's

Seventy-Two Letters, originally hosted on Tor.com

and still available by way of Archive.org