For a possible resemblance with the real cortical neural network working principle and face or object recognition, this is just a farce.
Regarding getting closer to the presumed singularity, this is like saying that cutting flint is close to making diamonds.
The authors didn't claim that, but the abusive use of "neural network" for such kinds of applications is just doing that. It is a dishonest abuse of people who can't make the difference.
The true problem is that significant quality work toward modeling real cortical neural network is drown in the sea of such faker crap.