Re: So ...
"The folks currently making/spending massive bucks in AI/ML are either cluelessly following a trail to nowhere, or they are shysters?"
Neither. Given that we simply don't understand how biointellegnce works mainstream AI/ML development has focussed upon a statistics based approach that we know does work, at least to a degree. This statistics based approach though, isn't capable of self-learning and requires exhaustive training just to be able to solve each specific type of problem; it is never going to spontaneously deduce the existence of rice pudding and income tax. As Steve Furber points out, biointellegence doesn't work like that; "you could take a two-year-old human, show them one cat, and they'll recognise cats for the rest of their life."
I also think that he makes a very good point when he highlights the energy and efficiency considerations; this goes far beyond the simple matter of 'jelly' vs. silicon and points to a completely different paradigm.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
