There is lots of doubt about the military’s level of advancement on the project but it’s a good thing to keep in mind just how long the SR-71 was around before anyone knew anything about it. The Government still has the ability to attract talent and many of the technological advances we take advantage of today came via the military (nuclear power for example).
Right it’s purely pattern recognition.. but that is also the basis for human intelligence.
“But what about the underlying physical laws – do they favour predictable evolution? At very large scales, it appears so. We know of many laws governing our universe that are certain. Gravity, for example – for which we owe our oceans, thick atmosphere and the nuclear fusion in the sun that showers us with energy – is a predictable force. Isaac Newton’s theories, based on large scale deterministic forces, can also be used to describe many systems on large scales. These describe the universe as perfectly predictable.”
TLDR: The foundational rules of physics will bring humanity into being every time. So, unless there is a universe out there with different physics… Humans, or similar beings, will inevitably come forth.. with every big bang.. assuming there are more then one and that this isn’t a simulation.
If you did make a Universe simulation with our fundamental physics.. intelligent life would pop out. Fun. Would they be considered “AI”?