The biggest challenge for these discussions is that people are not able to differentiate between different aspects of animals and intelligence.
For example, in the first few lines, they equate "self-aware" and "sentient".
We have to be able to use these types of terms more precisely to think about this clearly.
In some interpretation, Claude 3 has self-awareness. But it definitely can't have the type of "sentience" that an animal has because it has no body or simulation of a body.
Not only do you need to be able to decompose the various aspects of life and cognition, but you need to look at different levels and types of function inside of those characteristics.
Machine Learning companies, workers and academics I have some recommended reading:
"The Boy Who Cried Wolf" by Aesop.