The shift from current statistical modelling to sentient software is not a matter of degree, but a difference in kind. Nothing we have now is even close to being able to perceive and think in the way that a human mind does. We won't get there through incremental progress, better hardware or clever algorithms. The shift from "applied statistics" to "Commander Data" will be sudden and unexpected, as big or bigger than any technological change that in human history that I can think of. We couldn't put a date on that shift any more than Henry Ford could predict the common adoption of driverless cars, if they were explained to him in 1908.
A current deep learning neural network cluster and "Hard AI" seem similar but they really bear no relation to each other. Like comparing a bird to an airplane, they both fly and have wings but the ability to make one isn't related to making the other. Right now we're building better birds, true AI is a stealth bomber.
People say that whenever computers achieve a goal, then the goal is no longer considered AI. For example people 20 years ago didn't think that computers could play chess or compete on Jeopardy, but now that they've done those things they aren't thought of as impressive demonstrations of intelligence any more. There's some truth to this, but for the majority of people the goalposts have never moved. They associate the term "artificial intelligence" with an artificial mind that functions in the same way that a human mind does, "Hard AI" in the tradition of Asimov and other science fiction writers. We're as far away from that as we've ever been. It could happen in 2045 or 4045, or anywhere in between. No evidence exists that we're getting closer and there's no reasonable way to predict when what we can't imagine will become reality.
I don't think it's possible to just "think up" true AI.
I think the easiest method to achieve it, would be to first upload an actual human brain to a computer environment - by slicing a brain into molecule-thin slices, then observing the neural responses of that simulated brain.
A current deep learning neural network cluster and "Hard AI" seem similar but they really bear no relation to each other. Like comparing a bird to an airplane, they both fly and have wings but the ability to make one isn't related to making the other. Right now we're building better birds, true AI is a stealth bomber.
People say that whenever computers achieve a goal, then the goal is no longer considered AI. For example people 20 years ago didn't think that computers could play chess or compete on Jeopardy, but now that they've done those things they aren't thought of as impressive demonstrations of intelligence any more. There's some truth to this, but for the majority of people the goalposts have never moved. They associate the term "artificial intelligence" with an artificial mind that functions in the same way that a human mind does, "Hard AI" in the tradition of Asimov and other science fiction writers. We're as far away from that as we've ever been. It could happen in 2045 or 4045, or anywhere in between. No evidence exists that we're getting closer and there's no reasonable way to predict when what we can't imagine will become reality.