If that was the first time you'd seen mention of that essay, then you'd be forgiven for not knowing that always precedes discussion of hand crafting vs brute force. I've never seen it be answered with a call for exotic computation, so my mistake. I've seen plenty of energy requirement estimates related to defeating various cryptographic algorithms, using spherical cows, etc. You'll need a lot more than an architectural change to make a noticeable dent, you'll need the discovery and industrialization of new physics - not the sort of thing you want to hang your hopes on.
Who said anything about hand crafted AI models? I’m talking about revisiting our models of computation. Moore’s law has long made it impossible to challenge the dominance of Von Neumann. Perhaps what we need to make further progress is some sort of decentralized, busless computer? Who knows?