On my smartphone typing this.
Life is abundant on Earth. Life on Earh comes in so many varieties. Organic, the most common, is the only one we recognize. We can perceived the concept of inorganic life through machines.
In the future, machines will develop possible sentience and start to build their own population. In the far future. Just not now.
How can that happen?
Best guess is humans building a powerful adaptive learning computer software. Something we'll beyond our current capabilities. The software will absorb the cumulative knowledge of mankind plus the theoretical concepts of human thinking. This is the most important part.
Life will find a way. There may be no answer on what specific circumstances caused it
It will just happen. Accidentally by chance.
I can see this happening by either a science point of view or from a faith based view. Both sides work hand in hand.
A spark is all you need.
We joke about Skynet. The Borg is scary if they were real. The Trade Federation druids were silly. The Dale's are dangerous. That's make believe. But, good cautionary tales.
Argue all you want. All of you are right in your arguments. Why? There is no evidence to prove you wrong at this time. It's what we call theoretical discussion. The same for aliens, vampires, and perfect 10 women. Until an example comes forward publicly, it's all fun discussion.
My OP was about human cloning. Dale has dozens of himself working on new code for the game. Human cloning is illegal. He has to disguise the work as AI.