I think all these discussions are pointless, since we lack any rigorous definition of intelligence or "understanding." Going for something "human-like" might be

I think all these discussions are pointless, since we lack any rigorous definition of intelligence or "understanding." Going for something "human-like" might be worthwhile simply for the fact that we associate intelligence with humans and thus would more easily accept it in something that mimics us, despite never being able to prove that it is actually intelligent. In the same way, going for some technology that is more rationally explainable might cause humans to doubt its intelligence, because we still don't understand human intelligence and thus people would conclude such a thing can't have human-level intelligence. But that has nothing to do with the most reasonable path towards AGI. Almost all the approaches I've seen listed so far can't be accepted or dismissed with today's state of research - we can only pursue as many of them as possible and hope that the path clears up eventually.