What precisely are those long-standing problems?
I ask because I actually know people who are starting to demonstrate the rudiments of intelligence using simulations of ~100,000 neurons.
Per upthread, that's a long way from a brain, and in fact we don't even know how all of the brain is wired, let alone how it works. But you might want to consider this and this and this.
If they're attempting the impossible, you should let them know not to waste their money.
autistic intelligence have been done for years with neural nets, the limitation is abstracting this basic equation estimation technique (which is all the neural construct really do.) and I guess the article describes a need way to overcome some obstacles.
IMHO the biggest challenge is really training data, you dont have enough of it, take a project like OpenCog, they've done simulations in secondlife, and this is problary the best route available for the moment. The best route would be to stuff the AI in an actual body, cause there is more training data in the real world than anywhere else.
Without life, Biology itself would be impossible.
