Are non human forms of sentience easier to build in AI?

Serious question: If the wider tech/AI industry is trying to build AIs that have awareness that is greater than or equal to humans, have we considered building other forms of arguably alternative forms of sentient intelligence, such as ant colonies, bee hives, and have the same level of intelligence as a swarm of intelligences rather than 'one big brain' that goes Skynet and presumably takes over humanity?

My guess is that we can get to superintelligence by building machines that have aggregate intelligence but have no individual sense of identity.

And more importantly, is sentience the real goal, or is superintelligence the actual goal?

Do we even need sentience for superintelligence?

Where does that Venn diagram overlap have to occur? Does that overlap actually need to exist?

Does it become easier to build a superintelligence if you take the Jarvis part out of the equation?

It's something to think about.