Sentience is the universe trying to understand itself. Out goal while we're alive is to aid in the evolution of a species or lifeform capable of interpreting reality better than those who came before. For generations that meant fucking and having kids.

To me, that's what necessitates the development of AI. In 150 years we've gone from harnessing electricity to creating computers and advanced robotics, and we're still figuring this shit out. Meanwhile, the human body has had effectively no evolution in that same timeframe.

We can't compete. Therefore, developing AI is the next stage of our evolution. Not the evolution of the human body, but the evolution of sentient thought.