the brain is just a configuration of matter. seems like recreating this configuration is inevitable? and isn't it a safe assumption that if it's configured the same way it will behave the same way?
once we can understand the system we can synthesize it in software. AI in the mean time, seems like a guessing game.
I think the most likely way to achieve a "real" general intelligence will be by reverse engineering how functioning brains and minds work. At least is an area where continual, albeit rather slow, progress is being made - eventually we will know how the mind works (assuming that there isn't anything fundamentally weird going on - which seems unlikely).
Once we understand how minds actually work I suspect there should be a good chance that we can upgrade/optimize these structures - either by architectural improvements or by throwing more resources at the areas that constrain current performance in biological brains. At that point things really could get rather exciting - but I don't expect this to happen in my lifetime (I'm in my 40s).
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Brain_Project
edit: i admit i didn't read the article before replying here. my thoughts were already better articulated; "They're not studying the mind and they're not trying to find out the principles of intelligence, so research may not be the right word for what drives people in the field that today is called artificial intelligence. They're doing product development."
https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/
That looks rather cool!
Why not? What fundamental things you think are lacking? I think we'll have ai in 10-20 years.