I guess what I’m getting at here is that I had not, until somewhat recently at least, appreciated just how much easier it might be to build Multivac than Astro Boy
There's a non-zero chance that the human brain just turns out to be the most pound-for-pound, watt-for-watt efficient intelligence engine ever. Sure, we'll inevitably create "smarter" machines, but silica may simply never achieve strict dominance.