I think it's entirely possible it's too complex a problem for us to solve. After all, if you think about it by definition a more intelligent being than us would be able to solve problems we can't. Maybe this is one of those, so there might not be any way for us to bootstrap to a general AI.

I don't really buy that argument (even though it's mine, I've not seen anyone else argue this). We design systems so complex and built from learning algorithms and neural nets such that ultimately we don't actually know precisely how they are doing what they do. We could brute force it by evolving a solution maybe. But it's at least plausible that we won't be able to engineer and design an AI architecturally because we're not up to the task.