Can't speak for tortoise, but in previous encounters he has asserted the theoretical problem has been solved, but the hardware problem is difficult.
The hardware prob will be solved. Believe it. :-)
My understanding is that the theoretical solutions that are publicly known require unreasonable amounts of computing resources, growing exponentially with complexity so Moore's Law doesn't help. There are efforts underway to create good approximations that can run on today's hardware.
Another approach is to simulate the human brain directly, and the hardware will be available for that within a few decades unless Moore's Law hits a wall. Estimates of the brain's computational power are around 10^16 operations per second. Blue Gene does 300 teraflops (3*10^14) today.