> NNs/etc are distributed optimizers guided by partial objective information.
Sounds like NN is a special case of something more general. I am interested in the field that studies these concepts from the first principles and in a more rigorous and general way. What's that field? Thanks.
If you want to go down the rabbit hole, i'd suggest Jeff Hawkin's book (On Intelligence)
The essential takeaway will be that the current focus is on cortical algorithms representing the neocortex. Even as such, the current models are only partially inspired.
From there, something might stand out to you. Caution : This is the harder and unpaved road.
Studies in : Neuroscience. Neurobiology. Computational Neuroscience. Information theory.
For conversion work to computational land, a creative mind and a broad array of knowledge and experience in software engineering. Might take years but you'll maintain a depth of understanding and much greater capability of tackling AGI.
On AGI efforts, I personally can't imagine how one can maintain they are on a path to AGI by way of instantiating an artificial form of it yet have not even a basic understanding of how the biological form of it functions or how far off their models are from the essential parts that make it tick.
I guess to some people, it's cortex all the way down.