Odds of intelligent life occuring?

[Anomalocaris]

Do you see any good candidates, Anomalocaris? I sure don't. Not short-term, anyway.

The gap in time between when the last hominid ancestor showed no particular indication whatsoever of being on a particularly favorable path to our ideal of technological intelligence and Sputnik is as short as 3 million years, but charitable 10-15 million years.

So my guess is if humans are wiped out, a different intelligent technic civilization based on the chimpanzee can arise in as little as 3 million years, while other species of ape current existent can give birth to specie with a capacity to,destroy itself using means comparable to electing a trump in 10-15 million years.