I’m wondering if it’s pseudo religious with humans being created in God’s image (Ancient Aliens stuff), the human-centric idea that intelligent life must resemble us, it being easy to make costumes for movies and TV when all you need to do is paint someone’s skin, or if SciFi writers were going for the uncanny valley effect for example.
It’s interesting to look at what is actually required to be a technological species (assuming they develop it themselves).
To make technology, you need something to manipulate the world reliably. Hands are the most obvious method, but not the only ones. Octopus tenticles could also likely fill the roll.
Developments are useless, if they can’t be passed on to the next generation, or shared around. Technology requires building on the work of others.
There needs to be something to drive early brain development. With humans, it was likely sexual preferences. It could otherwise become a chicken and the egg type problem.
A specialist species will tend to lean into their strengths. There’s far less need for intelligence when you have big claws, or heavy armour already. This also applies to size. Too big, or too small tends to specialise in a why the precludes other developments.
There are several species on earth that hit some of these points, but not all. E.g. Dolphins hit all but the manipulator issue. Octopus are completely solitary. Many mammals hit all but brain development, and crabs overspecialise.
I could easily see a small tweak leading to a radically non human technological intelligence. That is also based only on what has already developed and stabilised in the earth’s biome. The cambrian explosion showed that far more body forms are at least viable.