>>8>neural networks are very limited in terms of real AI. something totally new will have to be created, which means academia + DARPA research.
Currently ANNs recognize almost everything animals can recognize, the remaining problem is integrating their output. But I think the main problem would be the amount of connections real neuron has (up to 10000) vs artificial neuron (bare minimum). The more connections you have the more precise is the answer. So with 10000 connections you will get 99% speech recognition, while with 100 connections you will get say 50%. The difference is huge, as between the system will perform well vs it will bump into a corner or go nuts other way, missing some edge cases.