[ThomPete]

About a decade ago winning GO or self-driving cars were seen as pipedreams many decades away. Yet here we are.

The author is making the mistake of thinking that just because he can show some areas were we aren't as far as we thought he has made an argument against AI.

Thats not how it works. We don't get to decide what is the right metrics. All we can see is that we keep making progress sometimes large leaps sometimes slow.

I always find it fascinating that we have no problem accepting the idea that human consciousness evolved from basically nothing but the most elementary building blocks of the universe and once we became complex enough we ended up being conscious yet somehow the idea of technology going through the same just in a different media seems to many impossible.

I know where my bet is at least and I haven't seen anything to counter that neither the OP's essay.

[posterboy]

The fallacy there is glorifying consciousness. Full consciousness as in omniscence is an unachievable ideal. If we prescribe consciousness to ourselves, depending on the individual theory of conscious thought, that's likely faulty in some respect already.

[ThomPete]

I don't see anyone glorifying consciousness especially not as some omniscient ideal. In fact I only see people arguing that consciousness isn't really the goal or the focus here but rather that you can't talk with any certainty about whether or not it's possible. You can however point to the fact that we are making progress towards more and more complex relationships and that this looks very much like how we became conscious. Thats all really.