It requires it, in the same way that cars require legs and submarines require fins, or planes require flapping wings. I don't think strong AI will be anything like humans. If nothing else, it will follow a totally different evolutionary path than the conditions that created human minds. Minds designed for navigating the social hierarchy of primates.

But the second point of my comment is that the philosophical debate about "consciousness" is disconnected from any empirical matter or anything connected to reality. Some of the advocates of the "hard problem" have stated that if neuroscientists came up with an exact theory of the human brain, that perfectly explained our behavior, they would still not be convinced. It's complete quasi-religious nonsense that's irrelevant to real AI or brain research.