> As an aside, the human brain runs on relatively low power consumption and operations per second, so computational power isn't a bottleneck. You hit the nail

> As an aside, the human brain runs on relatively low power consumption and operations per second, so computational power isn't a bottleneck. You hit the nail on the head here (pun intended). Brains (and other adoptive biochemical processes which reinforce behavior) are way more ingenious then to be described as a simple computer. It is not just neurons firing in patterns with synapses which can reinforce certain pathways. No, there is a whole biome in our bodies, from our guts, our muscles, through hormonal systems and yes, nervous system. Our behavior is also influenced by bacteria and other microorganisms that doesn’t even share our DNA (but sometimes actually interacts with our DNA). This complex machinery has evolved over millions of years, and I don’t think there is any way for us to simulate it. Even if we look outwards, our behavior is just as much influenced by each other as it is by our brains. So for a successful simulation you’d need to “raise” your machine in a similar manner, allowing interactions with a whole community (or more) that treats it as equal. Our brains are merely a tool which encodes this interaction as learned behavior. Just building a brain will miss all of that and give us a lousy model. In statistics we learn that: “No models are correct, but some models are useful”. I’ve always taken this to mean that there is not always utility in a 100% accurate model. I think this applies for AGI. If we create a machine that can do everything that a human can, and better, what can we use it for? You claim increased competence, productivity, and performance, but we already have machines that do that. And we humans have found a way to work pretty well with those. We even have fully automatic vehicles that transport millions of people every day (e.g. in Vancouver B.C. and Copenhagen). It doesn’t need to be better then humans in everything, just accelerating and decelerating in the right places, it doesn’t need to know the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow, it will only need to know if something is blocking the tracks. Traditional statistical inference will make these systems better and cheaper, and they will benefit humanity, there is no need for them to have generalized knowledge beyond their immediate utility, so they will never be given one.