[opsiprogram]

I guess it depends on... what "work" means. So I worked on Deep Networks for quantum chemistry (I'm not a physicist or chemist but) I can tell you people were ecstatic about the possibility that the approximations that the neural nets come up with might get closer to real physics than current approximations right now. This w/o any needed advancements. Some challenges are so difficult in these areas that approximations are the best that are possible. It's kind of similar to drug discovery now.. like if there are models which can help narrow down potential molecules / targets, that has tremendous potential even if the system needs to be double checked by a person. So it's hard to see "don't work" as anything but buzzy. BUT I will agree with you neuroscience will help develop our understanding of cognition.

I just wanted to blast these other applications, because I think people get this idea that AI has to be AI for anything interesting to happen... but there are really niche applications where people don't think these tools are experimental. And what you describe may already be happening, Geoff Hinton's critique of modern deep nets seems to be a call to get more biological. (Thinking of capsules nets).