Intentional/incidental biomimicry of high level neural behaviors and structures by ML/AI researchers is hardly a new kid on the block. Sure, with neuron centered approach research is still at the level of discerning urban activity by looking at lighting patterns, but it has obvious practical value even if transformers and diffusion are only loose approximations of what's actually running in wetware.
You were talking about the practical value of comparing Transformers etc. to neural structures: "neuron centered approach research is still at the level of discerning urban activity by looking at lighting patterns, but it has obvious practical value".
This type of research has limited practical value, for the reasons outlined in various comments I made here. Transformers etc. have a lot of practical values.
