It's a very difficult philosophical problem isn't it - especially as few people seem to be able to define the terms, threshhold and expectation we actually have for something "not us" to meet. We have lots of words being thown about, intelligence, sentience, consciousness, wisdom, etc...
What is intelligence? Ability to answer questions and work out problems? Would an IQ test show intelligence? Computers can be programmed to ace those, and expert systems can be very good at answering questions! Are they "intelligent" then?
What is sentience? The ability to feel things? Many animals are said to be sentient - they don't require language (a lot of our discussions seem to be about the ability to communicate using language - is that required for any of the above?). At what "level" of animal does sentience stop/start?
What's conscsiouness? No one knows how the internal monologue or consciousness comes into being. We also can't know for sure if anyone else has one - we just have a general agreement that everyone must have - based on what? How they answer questions, and because they're built the same way as us?
What about when we sleep or are in a coma - have we ceased to "be" during that time?
I don't know any of the answers at all - I just think the whole thing is fascinating, and I'm not sure I've truly heard what we're looking for when people say "artifical <insert term here>", or how we would know or prove it's there. Truly fascinating.