🚀💡Machine Intelligence: The Physics Behind Our Future Potential

My realization of how enormous the discrepancy between (potential) machine intelligence and human intelligence is, when viewed through the lens of the fundamental physics was one of the most fascinating insights I got from reading Nick Bostrom’s SuperIntelligence.

🔍 𝗗𝗶𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄?
Nick Bostrom highlights the stark differences between human brains and AI in terms of information processing speed and capacity. While the human brain is a marvel of evolutionary efficiency, its performance pales in comparison to what AI could theoretically achieve. Let’s dive into some fascinating numbers:

1️⃣ 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗲𝗱:
• Speed of Neurons vs. Microprocessors: Biological neurons fire at around 200 Hz, while modern high-end CPUs can reach 6.0 GHz—a difference of 𝙨𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣 𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙢𝙖𝙜𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙚.
• Information Transfer Speed: Information transfer in the human brain is limited by the speed of neural signals (up to 120 m/s), whereas electronic systems can communicate at the speed of light (3×10⁸ m/s)—a difference of 𝙨𝙞𝙭 𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙢𝙖𝙜𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙚.

2️⃣ 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝗶𝘇𝗲:
• Number of Neurons: The human brain has about 86 billion neurons, limited by biology. In comparison, AI hardware could scale near indefinitely.
• Size: An artificial “brain” could theoretically scale up to 6.1×10¹⁷ m³ (nearly as big as Pluto) while maintaining low latency, compared to the 0.11 m³ limit of the human brain—a difference of 𝙚𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙢𝙖𝙜𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙚.

3️⃣ 𝗦𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗔𝗱𝘃𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲𝘀:
• Instant Knowledge Transfer: AI can share knowledge instantly across billions of instances, revolutionizing learning and skill development.
• Editability and Duplicability: AI software can be easily modified and copied for rapid experimentation and deployment, unlike biological brains which require years to develop.
• Goal Coordination: AI systems can perfectly align with a shared goal, avoiding the inefficiencies common in human collectives.

4️⃣ 𝗘𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗴𝘆 𝗘𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆:
• Power Consumption: Despite its “compute limitations”, human brains retain an edge in energy efficiency, thanks to millions of years of evolution.
Human brain consumes 0.3kWh / day, and back of the envelope math gives me around 5 kWh per user per day for ChatGPT—a difference of 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙛 𝙢𝙖𝙜𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙚 (this time in favor of humanity 🥳).

❝𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘧𝘵𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘣𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥, 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘴.❞
Will they ever be realized is another question!

🌟 What do you think awaits humanity? Did these figures surprise you?
Drop a comment below with your thoughts !