I get the feeling that research is circling around consciousness arising from quantum effects inside nerve cells. If it's not that, and it's just an emergent property of complex neural networks, then:
smaller animals are less conscious (note, I'm not saying intelligent) than humans, and
we are all fucked, because AI definitely is/will become conscious, and when that happens Terminator will come true.
I'll leave this comment in place in order to debunk it.
You are misquoting the study you have referenced. A read of the abstract showed zero consideration of whether there was any correlation between autism and trans.
Locking. Too many people breaking rule 1.