It's not empty, the singularity hinges on robots becoming sentient but who's to say they ever weren't? Who's to say anything isn't? If plants make a 'decision'

It's not empty, the singularity hinges on robots becoming sentient but who's to say they ever weren't? Who's to say anything isn't? If plants make a 'decision' about which branch to grow next based on sun trends, that's equally as deterministic as humans deciding which word to say next based on stimulus. Are all singularitists non-determinists too? Are words cosmically more important than branches? Sentience is just a synonym for humany stuff. (I know it when I see it - a validator function requiring a human - convenient!) Maybe dolphins have it? Looks like they're talking and have a society. Octopi? They engineer solutions to escape confinement. The second you act more humanlike we know it when we see it so maybe you're sentient? If dolphins and octopi, why not mice? If mice, why not Roombas? The Roomba wasn't programmed to clean _my_ room specifically, so he's not a routine. No more or less than the maid service anyway. The only place to hold the line on sentience is 'doing humany stuff' which is what makes the singularity anthropocentric. The claim is that robots will start doing humany stuff. What proof? What if the AI wants to hide from us? That's mousey stuff. Humans hide from other humans, too. The mousey stuff is humany stuff. Are mice sentient? When a mouse hides, it's not sentient. When a human hides it is. When a robot hides it also is. Says who? A human I bet. So that's why pinning down sentience matters. Knowing it when you see it is too convenient when we also author the dictionaries. Only humans can say if your sentient. Why? That's where the anthropocentrism gets smuggled in. But the claim keeps going. They're not just doing humany stuff they're also doing it incomprehensibly better. Pretty enticing narrative leap if you're writing science fiction. I argue we have no evidence they would care about us at all. If they still bother you even though they don't care about you, like incidental death or extinction (sci fi plots!) then you should worry about them as much as you worry about rogue meteors and aliens. (More sci fi plots!) This is the 'fiction' aspect I allude to. It seems more likely that the singularity meme spread because it's an enchanting narrative, rather than an academic observation.