kot [they/them]

They don’t just eat dead animals, they also eat dead plant matter. Humans decided that some animals are “pests” because they don’t like having them around for one reason or another.

They are extremely important for getting rid of dead things. Everything contributes to the ecosystem, except invasive species, OP’s premise is impossible to begin with.

We don’t have AI. We have language learning programs that are hovering around mediocre.

That’s all that AI is. People just watched too many science fiction movies, and fell for the market-y name. It was always about algorithms and statistics, and not about making sentient computers.