I think this is because there’s an obvious series of steps that the openworm team was unable or unwilling to do: teach a C. Elegans a habitual memory, preserve

I think this is because there’s an obvious series of steps that the openworm team was unable or unwilling to do: teach a C. Elegans a habitual memory, preserve it using ASC, scan it slice by slice using an electron microscope, try to predict neuron weights based on chemical content or synapse size, and then feed that back into their model. One of the comments on the lesswrong post made a good point: a team without access to significant money or expertise was unable to make progress. That doesn’t say too much about the actual problem.