Being a messy computer doesn't make one better at messy computations. The reason humans are decent at certain tasks is usually because we have a lot of (low-qua

Being a messy computer doesn't make one better at messy computations. The reason humans are decent at certain tasks is usually because we have a lot of (low-quality) hardware directed at the task and we've had many years to evolve a workable hack-job. There is a common pattern in AI where a problem that humans do easily seems intractable, right up until we find a cheap trick that gets the job done and seems to have similar quirks to the biological equivalent. If we're lucky, we find an even better way than what evolution has stumbled upon. For example, computers are way better than humans at landmark recognition (using SIFT-inspired algorithms), but it took us a while to find the tricks to do that efficiently.