The only way AI is going reach human-level intelligence is if we can actually figure out what happens to information in our brains. No one can really tell if and when that is going to happen.

I somewhat agree. Given enough time we can make a machine that does anything a human can do, but some things will take longer than others.

It really depends on what you call human intelligence. Lots of animals have various behaviors that might be called intelligent, like insane target tracking, adaptive pattern recognition, kinematic pathing, and value judgments. These are all things that AI aren't close to doing yet, but that could change quickly.

There are perhaps other things that we take for granted than might end up being quite difficult and necessary, like having two working brains at once, coherent recursive thoughts, massively parallel processing, or something else we don't even know about yet.

I'd give it a 50-50 chance for singularity this century, if development isn't stopped for some reason.

We would have to direct it in specific directions that we don't understand. Think what a freak accident we REALLY are!

EDIT: I would just copy-paste the human brain in some digital form, modify it so that it is effectively immortal inside the simulation, set simulation speed to * 10.000.000, and let it take it's revenge for being imprisoned into an eternal void of suffering.

The human brain is not a computer. It was a fun simile to make in the 80s when computers rose in popularity. It stuck in popular culture, but time and time again neuroscientists and psychologists have found that it is a poor metaphor. The more we know about the brain the less it looks like a computer. Pattern recognition is barely a tiny fraction of what the human brain does, not even the most important function, and computers suck at it. No computer is anywhere close to do what a human brain can do in many different ways.

What does “better” mean in that context?

Yeah, this is a hot take: I think it’s totally fine if researchers who have done their studies and collected their data want to use AI as a language tool to bolster their paper. Some researchers legitimately have a hard time communicating, or English is a second language, and would benefit from a pass through AI enhancement, or as a translation tool if they’re more comfortable writing in their native language. However, I am not in favor of submitting it without review of every single word, or using it to synthesize new concepts / farm citations. That’s not research because anybody can do it.

It's a hot take, but it's also objectively the correct opinion