“stuff the human brain does easily in a half-second”
This is ambiguous between tasks the brain does in a half-second, vs. everything the brain does in a half-second. In a half-second the brain does a bunch of stuff to perform well in instance of the half-second long task it’s currently doing, and also it’s doing other stuff to e.g. learn how to do perform well in future instances of the task, and to “understand” the elements of the task insofar as those elements will also appear in other tasks. AFAIK ML is systematically more convincing about task performance than about transfer.
This is ambiguous between tasks the brain does in a half-second, vs. everything the brain does in a half-second. In a half-second the brain does a bunch of stuff to perform well in instance of the half-second long task it’s currently doing, and also it’s doing other stuff to e.g. learn how to do perform well in future instances of the task, and to “understand” the elements of the task insofar as those elements will also appear in other tasks. AFAIK ML is systematically more convincing about task performance than about transfer.