Have we shown what the human brain does at a “hardware” level? Or are you just assuming that the basic building block of a computer is that same as the basic building block of a human brain?
Basic building blocks are atoms. So, yes same. If you mean cells vs transistors, sure they're different. But we don't have to demonstrate anything to know that nature already made conscious intelligent AGI without it itself not understanding anything. Therefore AGI can be created without knowing what consciousness is. It happened at least once.
