Edit: I am surprised at the downvotes. In general, we learn from the nature, but aping it usually proved too difficult and often unpractical at the same time. Do we really want to replicate worm intelligence for practical purposes, or do we want something different?
I would say that a machine which can, say, analyze chemical compounds for their potential biological functions, is a very practical form of "intelligence" and yet very far from any biological intelligence that was ever produced in vivo. Worms cannot do that and even humans struggle with such tasks.
This is not true for how this 302 cell organism works. We don't know and struggle to understand. That's actually the reason why the project exists. To find out how everything works with an bottom-up approach.
While we may find shortcuts or even superior forms of intelligence without understanding how intelligence works in biological creatures, it is still curious how we struggle even with a "simple" organism like C.elegans.
And most of the details of bird flight were not exactly discovered till well after commercial air travel was commonplace.
We still don't know how cells in C. elegans work together. It's neither visible nor explainable on a satisfying level.
The Wright flyer didn't flap, and the wings only superficially look like anything a bird has.
That is true and it shows even more how important observabilty is for science and engineering. That's also why a simulation that actually provides an accurate enough model of reality might help us so much. The problem with AI right now is, that we try or even claim to understand Unix by mimicking the functionality of transistors.
> The Wright flyer didn't flap, and the wings only superficially look like anything a bird has.
They tried to mimick bird wings when coming up with flight control mechanisms.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=eaYIU6YXr3w?t=106
I’m not sure the timestamp works but it’s at 1:46