There was a time people thought humans could never build a flying machine. Then we invented helicopters, jets, rockets and airplanes - all flying machines, none of which even attempt to emulate birds and bees.<p>As a person who's spent 3/4 of his life on subjects like Artificial Life, synthetic psychology, etc, I believe we'll eventually reach <i>various</i> types of intelligence. But not until we figure out what exactly produces the effect that we currently define as intelligence, and emulate those instead of trying to build replicas of machines (brains, organs, etc) that already seem to exhibit it.<p>Attempting to build brains is one of many paths to learning what that needed extra spice is, but you can be pretty sure if/when we eventually do create an artificial intelligence, it won't look or act much like our own, except for the parts we choose to cosmetically appear that way.