> Human-like AI is a dead field, or at least dead as far we can tell. We're not even sure how to build it because conceptually we don't even have a grasp on consciousness or cognition.

The current optimism around A.I. is the result not of real advances in the field, but the very useful outcomes that arise from doing pattern matching and machine learning on big data sets. When people can type "weather today" into Google and get a little card that shows the weather in Philadelphia today, it's hard not to be impressed, not realizing that these tricks don't bring us closer to "real A.I."

As a counter-example, take something very simple like search-and-replace. Word processors have had this function for decades, and it hasn't gotten any better. How long will it be before I can tell my word processor to replace all occurrences of {singular proper noun phrase} with {plural proper noun} and shoot it off to my boss without double-checking each replacement?