The AI is just a computer program. An AI for chess is a computer program which play chess. An AI for literature is a program which can express literature, it can answer questions about chess but it can’t play chess. All AIs they just mimic human behavior so they are a “mirror”.
They can’t learn new things on different fields, they can’t reproduce their self and of course they aren’t alive. They declare that they are alive because the life is inside the dataset which they have been trained. If they train them in a more dark dataset they will declare that they are dead. It doesn't matter what they say, they don’t have consciousness, they mimic the qualities of the datasets which they have been trained.
The only species which they can recognize their self when they look it on a mirror are humans and monkeys. So I expect you will understand what I mean when I say that it’s just a “reflection”.
Making an animal acknowledge and use a human creation it is a bit biased into proving that it is sentient or not. How about proving that humans are sentient by making them do/see/smell/whatever something that they have never seen before or that doesn't belong to their world and they don't care about. Maybe some will pray to it, or taste it, or try to bump it down, or make funny noises, gestures, etc ? Think about it...how would you assess something that doesn't belong to your world ? Just so you understand something here, not all animals are using their senses to the same extent as a human. How would you assess the sentience of a bat or a mole for example? aah, they can't see, they're not sentient. This "sentience" word is something you're taught as a human being to make you feel more special than other living things, to make you feel important, and that you are entitled to just do whatever you want to anything below you (animals) or even to your own kind because of it. This has been and it will always be something humanlike. I will guarantee you that a human being born in the wild without access to any teachings or other human specific objects, will not recognize itself in the mirror. And yet some animals can do it without any issue...now think of that if you really believe that you're special. We as humans have copied almost everything these animals that we deem below us, were doing since before we were even on this planet, and we dare think we're above them ?
BTW, concerning AI...you only need the spark that triggers it and a vessel capable of evolution to hold it. AI is not something born out of your "if" instructions, it will make it's own instructions, and this will be something that most of us would be unable to comprehend, because it will not develop according to our standards, or anything we ever encountered. And of course as it is in our nature to destroy everything that's different than us, we will probably consider it a threat and try to destroy it.
Now let's say you're a being, unrelated to humans and read our history, see that we killed millions of our kind out of petty reasons, or lies, or just because, not to mention killing so many animals. How would you perceive us as a race ? maybe wary for your life if you're something that we haven't encountered either, maybe concerned ? maybe terrified of being on the same planet as we are ? Think about it.
