> 1-Biological brains have astrocytes that manage the synapses and activity of neurons, constantly and dynamically bringing together different and changing populations of neurons to perform functions (inhibiting some and enhancing activation in others).

Wouldn't this be something that could be mirrored or performed even better by just having more layers of neurons in the network. Of course in addition you could have multiple LLMs doing such work together of selecting best optimised systems for a given work. But it seems like astrocytes based on my limited knowledge are more for the reason of maintenance for biological systems which LLMs wouldn't necessarily have to deal with in the first place. So I'm not sure what kind of advantage astrocytes exactly would bring.

> 2-Neurons aren't the only computational units, astrocytes are also computational units involved in (at minimum based on recent studies) learning and object recognition.

But again - what benefits would they provide more over extra layers or LLMs that act together according to an orchestrating LLM?

> 3-Some cells like Purkinje cells learn patterns even when isolated. Something within the cell is learning/storing information about timed patterns of activity and can respond appropriately when the pattern is re-encountered.

But neural networks can in general learn patterns when isolated. It also seems they are more for physical movement, which we should care more about when building robots rather than text based intelligence. Although it seems like for physical movement there's other blockers, like materials.
It's all data structures that take input and produce output, which they receive feedback for whether it worked out well and adapt accordingly. I'd assume if LLMs neural networks were given a look, there would be many pockets like the Purkinje cells.

> Dendrites frequently perform preprocessing on signals prior to the signal being forwarded to the neurons soma.

Again it seems like extra layers of neurons. Because I assume with LLMs and other ML tools in addition layers will start to converge on specific set of processing and functionality as they train more. Preprocessing is just a way to make a larger task into more smaller subtasks.

> Rabbit's olfactory learning and memory is interesting, read up on it if you get a chance. A neuroscientist expert in that field has a theory that matches the data that the network within the olfactory region goes through a minimum-energy type of reconfiguration each time a new scent is detected that is related to some positive or negative. This is interesting from the perspective of how do brains get dynamically reconfigured with learning.

I should

But I mean overall, it all seems still the same concept, just orchestrated differently in certain ways and in biological sense it seems it has had to tackle problems that an LLM hasn't really had to, as it has had billions of years to evolve those layers of different systems, but having also a lot of tooling within it to deal with environmental limitations.

So it seems, that given enough computing power, we should be able to make something that is more intelligent than a human, which I do think GPT-4 already is in so many things.

I also am not sure what exactly would GPT-4 have less intelligence in compared to any animal. If you give it the proper input it should be able to perform at least at level of any animal, maybe not with same speed - as animals and as you mentioned in general there are many neural networks within human and animal bodies that correspond only to certain function and are optimised for that specifically.