And yes, a lot of people are trying to recreate intelligence without life ... the problem is ... intelligence is a function of living beings. You don´t see, on nature, intelligent rocks,for instance. But you do see intelligent insects, like bees.
So first of all, i think we need to create some kind of rudimentary life and then develop intelligence on it.
DNA is the base of life. There´s patterns, a language behind the DNA ... so i do think we can use "programming" to create structures like the DNA to form artificial beings.
So i think it´s really possible to create life (artificial) and intelligence (rudimentary) with our current technologies, but we cant do that with our current paradoxes , our way to do things. We need new forms of think, we need to start thinking like gods, not like humans. Sorry by the poor enlgish.