3 ms·
The article seems to be about how it is that the brain can process so much information at so slow a cycle speed, but it doesn't really address power efficiency
by fallingfrog 9y ago
The article seems to be about how it is that the brain can process so much information at so slow a cycle speed, but it doesn't really address power efficiency at all. Even assuming 100% parallel operation, our current chip designs use something like a factor of a million more energy to do the same amount of computation. I wish I knew why- it's not like we're ignoring power efficiency. Depolarization of an axon must be incredibly power efficient.
- fallingfrog 9y agoA litte online research reveals that the depolarization potential is on the order of one or two millivolts, whereas silicon has a bandgap of 700 millivolts. That's plausible; since power is proportional to voltage squared, a 500 fold voltage improvement would equate to a 250000 fold power improvement.
- dlwdlw 9y agoI think it's about context. If I say "order pizza" a ton of information is transferred via shared environmental context. I'm not transferring information directly but manipulating contextual levers to map certain types of information. An example is if I say something to you in say japanese, I also need to teach you japanese in the same phrase unless there is shared context. computers run on a very impotent form of language, logic, that is rigorous and general purpose but has no "escape hatch". (basically the sentiment of Godem, Escher, Bach with regards to rigorous systems. )
- fallingfrog 9y agoOh ok you're talking about data compression. That's also not what efficiency means, in a strict sense.