[rizzom5000]

I also don't have an absolute opinion, but the math of the simulation hypothesis does appear to check out and it's not difficult to believe, scientifically, that intelligences dramatically superior to human-level are possible.

(1) is likely achievable if we gain a better understanding of biology and the human nervous system, which seems likely given a timeline of continuous scientific progress. (2) is even easier for me to grasp as we already know how much energy the human brain uses and we have billions of them now. So far we're not aware of any serious show stoppers for this scenario, but we might be talking timelines of 100's of years.