Sentience

My friend Bratislav believes the Amerindian, Robert Morning Sky, who theorizes that creatures on other worlds will tend to evolve to have humanoid shape, as they approach sentience, be they apelike, lizard-like, insect-like, plant-like, fungus-like, etc.

If you are like a futurologist, maybe read the document "The Ghost of Transhumanism and the Sentience of Existence."

Autocomplete isn't about to gain sentience.

For a while I sat quiet, my heart beating. The place was grimly dark. The only light was a faint one from the top of the lamp which threw a white circle on the high ceiling, except the emerald sheen of the shade as the light took its under edges. Even the light only seemed to emphasize the blackness of the shadows. These presently began to seem, as on last night, to have a sentience of their own.

The science of animal sentience is far from a firm one; there's no way of knowing exactly what any animal is feeling.