We address this argument. AGI has a lot to do with simulating brains in our opinion, since an agent of similar or higher complexity has to be created. There can be no shortcut, in our opinion.
A deep learning network with 10^7 nodes will not outperform a brain with 10^11 neurons, especially if each neuron is highly complex.
We are not arguing that a brain simulation will/will not take over, but that an agent which could would have to use a similar amount of energy, or even several orders below. And that's unrealistic.
Thank you all for the very useful contributions! Apologies for my delayed response, the end of the semester ect caught up with me
I think a main issue which emerges is that there are no good measures for computation which apply equally well to brains and algorithms/computers. Can I memorize 1 TB worth of numbers? Of course not? But how many TB of data do my (mediocre) squash playing skills take up? I think there are no good answers to many related questions yet.