We can model some aspects of insect behavior. The simulation even looks convincing at first glance (just as simple "AI" looks convincing with a superficial examination of a conversation or text-generation). But we have not been able to fully model the behavior of, say, a bee (which may be enough to solve self-driving cars and then some).

Exactly.

> they tend to follow brownian motion in 3D

Well, their entire neural system exists to make deviations from Brownian motion. That's the whole point of being an animal not a plant. And doing it well is very very subtle.

First steps towards modelling such behavior can be super-interesting science, not a terrible use of time at all. They can capture a lot of truth about how it works. But like self-driving cars, the thing that kills you is usually a weird edge case, not the basic thing.

Terrible? Not at all.

I'm sorry and apologize if you feel I was one to kill the discussion you wanted to have around AI.

I'm one of those dreamers who think AGI is or at least should be possible, soon, through means we have not yet discovered but will, soon. I base that on absolutely nothing, I suppose, other than the fact we have lots of "bright/smart/crazy" devs working on it. It's my own personal "believie", as Louis CK would say about things we believe in but cannot or care not prove.

Just like you I'm looking at organisms much simpler than us as a way forward. Many specialized neural network does not make up AGI, is what I think. Is it the organic and human neuron we should model? I don't necessarily think so. Also. robotics + ML is a dead end to me. An amoeba that can evolve into something more complex, is perhaps what we should model.