Sure but think about what happened. 50+ years ago, researchers figured out some aspects of a neuron, simulated a network of grossly simplified neurons, and found out they could do useful things. Much of modern NN stuff is just following that trajectory.
I don't think many people seriously believe that artificial neurons are in any way comparable to a real neuron, much less believe that an ANN is comparable to what goes on in the human body. Maybe in some very limited cases like the visual cortex, but even then I think most people would admit that it's a poor model valid only to a 1st approximation.
That said, there is still merit in pushing the current approach further while other researchers continue to try to understand how biology implements intelligence and consciousness.
I don't know a single luminary in AI who seriously considers the whole of body approach to their work.
Pretty much everyone talks/reasons specifically only about the brain and never how they work holisitcally sensors and effectors.
For example, in computer vision, all of the biggest work assume the starting point of a 2D (RGB+Grey) matrix as the starting point. They never make any assumption about how that image is generated. Only really in the LIDAR world is the sensor considered, and even then everyone is trying to jam LIDAR return into a 2D matrix.
I don't think many people seriously believe that artificial neurons are in any way comparable to a real neuron, much less believe that an ANN is comparable to what goes on in the human body. Maybe in some very limited cases like the visual cortex, but even then I think most people would admit that it's a poor model valid only to a 1st approximation.
That said, there is still merit in pushing the current approach further while other researchers continue to try to understand how biology implements intelligence and consciousness.