Intuitively I feel like there is vastly more context involved in any biological neural network learning, but particularly in the human brain. You might be inclined to reduce the learning process to just a sequence of images, but the internal reference system brings in an enormous amount of other information that can get attached: sounds, smells, touch, taste, feelings, desires and so on. These all shape not just the way the new information is pre-processed but also how it is stored and in turn that newly stored memory influences future learning. The amount of feedback loops and indirect inputs is staggering.
Perhaps I'm naive, but the difference in apparent complexity and capability between artificial neural networks as we use and understand them today, and their biological counterparts seem vast.
I'm certainly not doing research into new forms of ML and AI algorithms, but I have used the existing concepts to some degree and just intuitively it feels like what we have today is still a very primitive approximation of what nature has achieved over the course of evolution. It feels like it's not merely a question of more data and more computational power, but we are missing fundamental building blocks to actually go beyond fancy curve fitting.
Note that I'm not making an assumption that fancy curve fitting cannot eventually give rise to human level AI, but certainly at the moment I see zero evidence that it can.
I think you assume too much. Humans can identify pictures of cats and I'd be hard pressed to assume that sounds, smells, touch, taste and feel matter during that evaluation.
I'm sure you could identify a large number of animals you've only seen on film, a snow leopard perhaps.
Perhaps I'm naive, but the difference in apparent complexity and capability between artificial neural networks as we use and understand them today, and their biological counterparts seem vast.
I'm certainly not doing research into new forms of ML and AI algorithms, but I have used the existing concepts to some degree and just intuitively it feels like what we have today is still a very primitive approximation of what nature has achieved over the course of evolution. It feels like it's not merely a question of more data and more computational power, but we are missing fundamental building blocks to actually go beyond fancy curve fitting.
Note that I'm not making an assumption that fancy curve fitting cannot eventually give rise to human level AI, but certainly at the moment I see zero evidence that it can.