Comment by curt15

While studying neural networks empirically like biology is one possible approach, there's no reason for that to be the blessed approach other than a combination of inertia and current lack of understanding. It's been only 15 years since AlexNet. Scientists struggled for centuries to model atoms before developing quantum mechanics and later QFT as an accurate quantitative framework.

Also, while biological systems simply exist in nature, artificial neural networks are ultimately mathematical objects with various properties that have yet to be uncovered.