Fijian ants began cultivating fruit millions of years ago, gathering seeds, then seeking out fissures in tree bark to plant them in before fertilizing them with their feces.

Not the one to whom you replied but had to rack my brain for the answer to this. Seems it depends on whether we define self-awareness via qualia or not.

If we define it just in terms of a mirror test then corporations definitely perform better than ant colonies because they can produce output referencing the corporation itself and context in which it exists, and react to mentions by others. And then the question is whether the thinking is done by just some human mind or a structure above humans. If decisions in some corporation are made by boards then the corporation's actions would be results of this super-human structure, though only very slightly advanced beyond the actions of individual humans inside it.

However, if self-awareness suggests understanding of the experience of being a corporation, I.e. qualia, then we can't say that corporations are self-aware because none of them ever said, "It's funny being a corporation," and the same with ant colonies. Of course, we'd like to know at what level of complexity the thought "I'm a corporation" appears in the structure but then we probably won't be able to comprehend its appearance just as neurons don't.

/r/science Thread Parent Link - npr.org