It seems odd that we would attribute consciousness to AI before we do animals. Perhaps we should just assume animals have consciousness and computers do not until proven otherwise. It is important, because laws , policies and cultural practices can be influenced by whether we think an animal has consciousness. Sometimes it seems we are swayed by the fact an animal has many innate/instinctive behaviours to conclude they are something akin to automatons. But hey, humans have a lot of instinctive behaviours too, and we are, after all, just animals. So I vote that for the purposes of making laws we assume 'yes, animal are sentient beings'.