Machine consciousness, sentience and mind

Artificial Intelligence, the term, was coined way back in 1956 by John McCarthy, a Stanford professor. As an idea it had its share of disappointments, battled scepticism and was kept on the backburner for several decades. However, intelligent machines and for them to be considered at par with human intelligence, are but two different propositions. Sci-fi readers would recollect HAL 9000, Arthur C. Clarke's AI–based protagonist in the book 2001: A Space Odyssey, which turns to an antagonist as the plot unfolds, and eventually turns villainous. Will it remain fictional, or is there a strong possibility that we may actually experience this in our lifetime?