They used their intelligence to control things around them, instead of letting nature and the strong-muscled… — Robert L. Forward

An animal doesn’t need to develop curiosity and intelligence if it has no problems that need solving.

After a short flurry of national and international concern over the “death of the Sun,” the human race settled down to solving the insoluble problem in the best way that they knew—they ignored it and hoped it would go away.

If the computer had been a human, its eyebrows would have raised.