The people actually working on general-purpose AI, exactly what the heck are they doing? It seems to me we: * Don't have a clear idea what consciousness is *

The people actually working on general-purpose AI, exactly what the heck are they doing? It seems to me we: * Don't have a clear idea what consciousness is * Have very pathetic attempts at creating it so far. But machine learning has achieved some seriously impressive stuff. Although I wouldn't call that intelligent. I'm into machine learning because it works and it is of great help to humanity. If someone told me to design a general-purpose AI, I wouldn't really know what to do. So what are these singularitans doing? Only philosophy or something real? They strike me more as the alchemists of our time rather than serious scientists.