it's a question of personhood outside of humanity. Can AI be sentient? Can animals evolve enough on this planet that they become sentient? What about aliens from other planets? Sure, if we are seeing them they built spaceships and came here but are they persons? Are they sentient? What does it even mean to be a person? Those are questions important to philosophy and they can be examined looking at animals on this planet here and now as well as these pie in the sky conceptual situations.