That's an incredibly sensationalistic way to put it. By that logic, the ancient greeks are the forefathers of WiFi, because they figured how to create static electricity using cotton and ambar.
You can (and should) give credit without overstating their achievement.
I used to think "Blackadder Goes Forth" was a comedy. Now I know it's a documentary.
Are you a parody account or just a total moron?
Depends on what you define as "same".
High five for unalienable rights
A nutter with a good point is still a nutter.
That man looks like a mime from hell
True, you can't test a literal rock and expect the result to be telling of counsciousness. Good thing the researchers aren't solely determining it by testing behaviour, and instead selected a group in which emergent intelligence is one of the probable phenomena.
I'd hazard the guess they don't, and it's easy to justify it - our current AIs don't have the internal aparatus needed to develop counsciousness (yet). They're way too simple and way too straightforward to be intelligent, whether intelligence is an emergent property or a fundamental structure.
We can always go the way of only eating fruits (and fruit-like growths), as they're specifically meant for being eaten.
So well thought out, you truly must've spent a long time sitting on that one.