50 million bits is enough to specify a human-level intelligence, but only if one has the appropriate machine. In terms of constructing an AI, the human genome i

50 million bits is enough to specify a human-level intelligence, but only if one has the appropriate machine. In terms of constructing an AI, the human genome is doing little more than taking clever advantage of ways to cause things in the physical world to self-organize (as per the book, Notes on the Synthesis of Form). Physical reality itself is the execution machine, is responsible for much of the end product, and has way more than 50 million bits of complexity. If we are thinking of running our first AI on something resembling current computer hardware, then we are going to run it in a extremely impoverished environment, as compared with actual physical reality. This means that the AI-specifying algorithm will have less environmental complexity to work with than the human-intelligence algorithm does, and this in turn means that the AI-specification will need to be longer and more complex. So from a practical standpoint, while one could in theory specify an AI in 50 million bits, in practice the first AI will need a much larger specification, and/or will need to run on some very powerful computer hardware. Just how powerful can probably be estimated, but it has little to do with the fact that the human genome contains 50 million bits of information. In terms of determining when AI will happen, the 50 million bit argument is a red herring.