As for my own comments, I think it's actually a promising approach but that down the road it will be necessary to model emotions if human-like AI is the goal, and that this seems... harder. So much of our thought and behaviour is driven by emotion that I would say it was actually primary.
https://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1202.abstract?si...
I couldn't find a pdf that wasn't behind a paywall. Also, there are different details at popsci.com:
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-11/meet-spaun-fir...
As for my own comments, I think it's actually a promising approach but that down the road it will be necessary to model emotions if human-like AI is the goal, and that this seems... harder. So much of our thought and behaviour is driven by emotion that I would say it was actually primary.