Similarly to the fallacies of anthropomorphism, the amygdala-hijacking that often occurs when ascribing sentience undermines the effectiveness of the animal model for AI. The central-nervous system ('best "brain"') analogy fallaciously assumes advanced executive function in a natural (ie. not rule-based) environment that confuses the role of currently tenable AI applications.

Robotics and agent-based systems may provide some counterarguments. My original comment was more about explanatory reasoning for machine learning systems than about development paradigms or goals.