> AI forces us to confront an issue that's often come up in science fiction - when you encounter a new kind of creature, how do you decide if they are sentient?

One of the series that I think is most interesting on that topic is the Children of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It's an awkward read, but it has the most interesting other minds that I've encountered in sci-fi.

Another one that I'd put on there specifically about AI is The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts... which I can't say much more without it being a spoiler one way or another.

> Maybe that's the fate of humans. No big extinction. Just the demographic transition, a birth rate below replacement rate, for a few centuries.

https://www.bohemiandrive.com/npwil - Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life (not a spoiler, that's chapter 1, panelset 2). Saturn's Children by Charles Stross might also be appropriate (It's an especially odd book to read immediately after Friday - the "I recognize that twist... oh, it twisted ... that way?").