Key scientists, including Stephen Hawking, agree that consciousness is not reserved exclusively for humans. 
(This was in 2012, so I am clearly very late to the party with this one but I wanted to blog it down on paper as it is such a key theme in Singularity’s Children)
http://youtu.be/W9QIOj3IYuk
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_consciousness#Cambridge_Declaration_on_Consciousness
http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf