I think adults and even young kids can solve a lot of problems at first impression, but there is a lot of trial and error before they build up enough life experience and intuition to do that.
Try that with an infant and see how far you get.
+ Reservoir computing, ESN, LSM, only combines quenched dynamics.
+ Adaptive resonance theory. Addresses catastrophic forgetting and allows someone to learn from one example.
+ Bottleneck networks. Forcing networks to represent things in a compressed sense. Almost like making up their own symbols.
+ Global workspace theory. Winner take all mechanisms that allow modules to compete.
+ Polychronization. Izhikevich shows how dynamic representations are possible thanks to delays.
+ Attractor networks. Use of dynamical system theory to have population of neurons perform computational tasks.
That neural networks are too fragile is a statement that's a bit too general.
Another amazing aspect of our ability to categorize is that we only need ONE example of a category before we can identify other members extremely well. Compare this with a machine learning solution, which needs a massive training set to be half decent.
I.e. don't compare a 10+ y.o. human with 0 y.o. AI instance.
One of the key features of human intelligence is being able to very quickly understand and solve problems on first impression, with no directly relevant experience or knowledge to pull from. Insight.
There's also the data representation problem. People can store, categorize, and process any kind of information.[1] The problem with both symbolic systems and "neural network"-type models is that they don't really allow for this. The problem with symbolic manipulation is more obvious: the categories of things and ideas are flexible, indeterminate, and innumerable, and a system that captures some subset of the complexity falls apart when you add a new, confounding, fact. Neural networks too are fragile, made-for-purpose, and fail to solve the above-mentioned first impression problem. You can look at a chair that looks nothing like any chair you've ever seen, yet realize that it is a chair.
[1]My own little theory is that consciousness is a crucial aspect of this. In the absence of a more specialized system in the brain (such as for language), any kind of information can be stored and remembered as a conscious experience. I don't pretend to be well-versed enough in the relevant neuroscience and philosophy to evaluate how plausible this is.