AI is easy. We do it all the time. Intelligence is using knowledge. Knowledge is input. Input is data. Data goes through algorithm. Algorithm adjusts to new information and gets reprocessed. New algorithm continues to process data and be altered by it. As it grows in sophistication it starts to mimic virtual neura. This is nature's wiring put to use virtually. Give the computer robot arms and it could interact with the real environment by drawing virtual scenarios, same way we do.
The fact that the brain works proves it functions. You can reverse engineer it, figure out what makes it tick and foster the areas we're weak in like math, short and long-term memory, reaction speed, processing speed. We'll engineer fleshy "chips" (tiny ball of jelly) to plug into the brain to dominate all mathematical function, memory "chips" in the same fashion. Eventually we won't need most of our brains as the functions will be dominated by implants. You could eventually replace your entire body piece by piece and still be you because your switch never got turned off. Your thoughts and awareness would eventually reside in a superior, mechanized brain. This would give you greater capacity in all areas, especially emotional intelligence. Higher ethics means you consider a wider scope of consequence. It means "ends justify the means" doesn't end a conversation with one being clearly evil. When morality gets in the way of morality it's sentimentality. We don't have the intelligence to consider wider consequences and we don't believe anyone else is either. This means we unite in our view that nobody's qualified to judge. Well, the hyperintelligent being is. The consciousness that developed alongside humanity as we enhanced our intelligence would take on the same traits, same motivations and would be indistinguishable from a hyperintelligent human. By this point we may well have mechanized bodies. How would you tell the two apart? It's only what we learned by enhancing human intelligence that we were able to use to develop artificial awareness. Keep in mind at this point neither humans or machines need food, sleep, rest or any of the other weaknesses we currently have.
By the time you can create a machine that's aware of itself and aware that it's aware of itself we'll be indistinguishable from it. We'll be about as smart and about as capable. We'll have the same weaknesses. We'll be the same. We based it on us.