| | In numismatics, we get a lot of argument about the grading of Mint State coins, but we start those arguments with, "Look, everyone knows what a VF Indianhead cent looks like..."
So, too, here. Forty years ago, the (just one) "Eliza" program was a novelty. Twenty years ago, Eliza programs were shareware. Once you see my computer running my Eliza program -- absent any other sensors or analogous simulcra-like inputs, or whatever -- you have to say, "It is a program, not a being." That is the Very Fine Indianhead Cent of this problem.
But if you want to go that route... start adding inputs. Given a sufficient brain and sufficient senors and effectors you have a physical being that can interact with its environment. So, there is that whole line of discussion.
However, this line of discussion is different. Given that some beings are featherless bipeds but lacking a sense of self, a "voice in their heads," do they deserve so-called "natural rights" any more or less than other apes, or porpoises, or whales, or whatever creature you find who does evidence a sense of self?
How do you know if a being has a sense of self? Respect for others would be one way. See the case cited above of the juvenile delinquent Nathaniel Abraham. Then, consider those who call for taxing the rich to pay for social programs. We Objectivisits grant those people a status they may not deserve. I have people like that in my college classes. They vocalize when they hear verbal cues. The instructor says, "The law gives public schools their in loco parentis status on the same theory that juvenile courts act parens patriae." And that is the Pavlovian cue for three women to tell the class about the time the principal of their child's school did something they did not like. I submit that I can get the same reflex by holding a Doggie Treet in front of Rover. It is just that the admittedly larger brain of the humanoid allows a more complex vocalization.
For those who are truly human, the echoic responses of the humanoids sound like the concept formations that we know internally. So, we grant these creatures the same status we take to ourselves. That, however, is a mistake.
The consequence comes when Atlas shrugs. Would you risk your life if you saw someone drowning? That's pretty vague, but it opens the door to this: I would accept a high level of personal risk to save Robert Bidinotto from drowning. His life is not worth more to me than my own, but I recognize a significant benefit to myself in taking the risk, because of the Trader Principle cited above.
What if you saved someone from drowning and then they tried to rob you? Is that the hallmark of an independent mind with a hidden agenda, or is it the action of a beast without conscience? If the latter, then why do you go to work every day? Whom do you serve by your efforts?
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Biologically, anyone who can either actually or potentially reproduce with another member of the population named as Homo sapiens, or any descendent of such a being, is human. I suggest Ernst Mayr's 
