A common critique of neuroAI is "sure, birds inspired planes. But modern engineers don't design planes based on birds. So why study brains to achieve human-level intelligence?"
But if our goal were to achieve "bird-level flight," mightn't we want to study how these eagles fly?
"Sentient" is being misapplied by many ML folks. It means "the ability to perceive or feel things" or "capable of experiencing things through its senses". Like many other categories, it is a matter of degree. 1/