In any case this discussion is going sideways, the point is that nature doesn't have monopoly on being optimal. This also applies to intelligence/learning/modeling something better than brain.
Because Mars is a simple and boring environment. Most of its surface, and especially the parts we target with rover missions, are effectively flat sheets peppered with rocks - a decent set of wheels and suspension is close to optimal for navigating such terrain.
Now, if we were to send missions to a planet that's mostly forests and rivers, like Earth used to be, then wheels wouldn't cut it - not before cutting down some of the forests first.
> the point is that nature doesn't have monopoly on being optimal. This also applies to intelligence/learning/modeling something better than brain.
Fair enough. Nature doesn't do globally optimal - but it makes things heavily optimized for their environment. That's why our planes are nowhere near as energy-efficient in flying as birds are, but birds cannot travel as far and as fast as our planes can.
Original argument was around optimising on intelligence and that biology doesn't hold best-possible trophy on it.
We don't need to match number of neural connections in human brain to exceed its intelligence.
That's also true because of wheels/road thing, in that we can "cheat" here too. More specifically, some of the neural connections in the human brain are dedicated to sensing, processing and controlling the dynamic state of human body. Purely-software AIs don't need those for intelligence.
Interestingly the latest Mars rover also includes a small helicopter, another technology which requires spinning something on a bearing and does not commonly exist in nature.