AI - Do humans think algorithmically?

What is the current state of AI ...

They have the "artificial" part working.

... and thinking on how humans think?

Muddled.

Do we think algorithmically?

Some people do some of the time. But, most of the time -- no.

Is the difference between a human brain and an artificial neural network simply one of degree and complexity with artificial “brains” destined to catch up and even overtake us eventually as technology develops. Or is there more to human intelligence than computational power? If so what?

The neural system is tuned for connectedness to reality. Computation is tuned for abstractness. They are poles apart.

(Just my opinions )

The consensus seems to be that things like self awareness and more human modes of thought are simply a matter of complexity and processing power.

The consensus can be wrong.

It was already Turing's idea, back in 1950, that computation (or logic) could do the job). All it needed was more compute power and more memory. Successful AI was just around the corner.

So here we are, 70 years later. We have far more memory and compute power that Turing could have imagined. But successful AI is still "just around the corner".

There is a huge religion of "logic worship" out there. I am an atheist with respect to that religion. I see logic as a useful tool, but nothing more than that.

Can we look at what evolution has done over millenia and shortcut it to create intelligent machines?

We won't, because we don't want that kind of intelligent machine.

We want machines that think for us. We don't want machines that have a mind of their own.

Why do futurists keep thinking that computers with human level intelligence and beyond are always just around the corner?

The conventional wisdom seems to be that intelligence is just logic; that thinking is just the use of logic.

The conventional wisdom is horribly wrong about this. But it is so deeply entrenched, that few people question it.

True sentience in a robot cannot be reached unless we give it free will

And that's not likely to happen.

For humans or robots.

LOL.

My comment was, of course, intended to be about robots. Whether humans have free will is much debated, but lets try to avoid opening that can of worms.

Now the darn Leftists want to push the National Debt into the government so that we the people HAVE to pay it off!

This does not make any sense.