And yes, this is pretty relevant - it demonstrates that perfect emulation is extremely expensive (in line with the critics of the idea of AI or brain emulation), but it also demonstrates how this doesn't matter in practice. (eg. I'd be happy to be a nigh-immortal upload if the price was a few glitches in an obscure memory I never think about.)
i think the question in my post has been misunderstood. i'm wondering, when will it be possible to simulate a SILICON device - such as the super nintendo.
instead of emulating the functional profile of the snes, we could run a physics simulator (at some level of abstraction) that contains all of the silicon circuitry and so forth which actually produces the functional profile.
that seems like a milestone towards simulating neural "devices" like the human brain.
And yes, this is pretty relevant - it demonstrates that perfect emulation is extremely expensive (in line with the critics of the idea of AI or brain emulation), but it also demonstrates how this doesn't matter in practice. (eg. I'd be happy to be a nigh-immortal upload if the price was a few glitches in an obscure memory I never think about.)