I believe that "real AI" (unsupervised general AI) will not be created by us. Instead if we arrive there, I think it be more by a loop something like:

  0. goodness criteria = <Humans INSERT MOTIVE HERE>

  1. we create dumb AI.

  2. we create a bit less dumb AI.

  3. for(some years) goto 1.

  4. we figure out how to make the bit less dumb AI, create another dumb AI on its own, and assess the goodness of it.

  5. run latest generated dumb AI to create a new AI based on goodness of the previous one.

  6. if (goodness criteria not met) goto 5.

So the whole process needs "jump-started" kind of like a jet-engine.

You end up with an AI system, tuned by another AI, in order to meet human supplied goodness criteria. And in the end, nobody actually understands the fundamentals of why it works. But hey, it does. Kind of. Most if not all I have read regarding these systems, describes the what, not the why.

Not sure what would happen if you use another AI to supply the motives (goodness criteria). I'm sure someone somewhere is trying :)

I think we are currently in 2018 at step 2.5.