If I'm understanding some of the criticism, it is basically that we don't think "that's how our brain does it" (when it comes to convnets, pooling, etc.). But this begs the question: do we _have_ to duplicate what goes on in the brain? For example: we really don't know how the brain does multiplication; and if I were to guess, I'd say it has nothing to do with binary arithmetic and shift registers. But yet we've been able to teach a computer how to do it, using an algorithm that has (in all probability) no relation to how our brains work. So maybe convnets, pooling and other hacks work, just not how the brain works?