The threshold isn't actually intelligence; it's reciprocation. Chimps have superhuman short-term memory, but they're not granted personhood. A tree can be inf

The threshold isn't actually intelligence; it's reciprocation. Chimps have superhuman short-term memory, but they're not granted personhood. A tree can be infinitely intelligent. If it doesn't do anything with that intelligence and can't communicate, and we couldn't profit from that intelligence in any way, we wouldn't care about it -- even if we somehow noticed it. If the tree can benefit us if we don't harm it, we suddenly care. If it can hurt us if we hurt it, we care. If other entities which can help us will do so as long as we don't hurt the tree -- or if they will hurt us if we hurt the tree, we care. (For example, this can be other humans with respect to their pets.) If it exhibits the specific kinds of intelligence that we care about, like talking, or if it simply moves us emotionally, we'll care. These are all reciprocations of social contracts we're forced, by our biology and by game theory, to respond to. That's the threshold. Power grows from the barrel of a gun, not an abstract notion of intelligence or consciousness (which, spoiler: is a religious nonsense concept) or whatever.