[alan_cx]

If that were to happen, I would suggest that an artificial "soul" could or would be created. Once you have that on your hands, things being to get interesting. Ethics, religion law, and so on will have one hell of a job on their hands. Especially when you consider that there would be immediate and obvious military applications.

[peterwwillis]

Do animals have souls, and do we care?

[rm_-rf_slash]

A cow kicked a lantern and burned down Chicago.

A powerful and incensed AI could destroy the foundations of global society before we would even know what's going on.

[makip]

A fascinating account of how a wide range of species exhibit sophisticated intelligent behaviour we normally only ascribe to humans.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/10/08/amazing-inner-liv...

We can't know whether animals have a soul any more conclusively than we can know that about ourselves. But it's arguable that one is not less probable than the other.

[aminok]

We care if an animal is intelligent, because then it is sentient like us, and has rights.