Budgerigars have tetrachromatic color vision and one named Puck had a
vocabulary of 1728 words.They obviously don't have the brain power or
incentive to develop science or "civilization" but they are sentient.
The difference between sentience and intelligence seems blurred.I have
long advocated that a good route to AI would be to construct a simple
conscious robot.That is to say, one that contained a 3D image of itself
and its immediate environment, with all the usual sensors, and that was
programmed to explore and learn. I think this is the essence of
consciousness.
Then it could set about learning in much the same way as a child.This
could be speeded up by preloading data such as a dictionary, rules of
grammar and the ability to talk, together with basic engineering and
science. Access to the internet would be a mixed blessing until judgment
was developed.
Taking a more evolutionary route than top down programming. The key
being the internal image of itself and whatever "desires" were
programmed in.I visualize a secondary image under the control of the
robot in which the computer could make and move its own 3D images of
objects.This would be a decided advantage over human intelligence.Much
easier to write this than the program of course.
