3 ms·
How many watts does a human brain need to produce a response to a query?
by deadbabe 1y ago
How many watts does a human brain need to produce a response to a query?
- nharada 1y agoI think you should include the entire body for your comparison, not just the brain. We're not just measuring the GPUs, we're measuring the datacenter.
- physix 1y agohttps://www.quantamagazine.org/how-much-energy-does-it-take-to-think-20250604/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-much-energy-does-it-take-... :-)
- hdjdbdirbrbtv 1y agoIIRC ( and it was 20 years ago now that I learnt this) the brain uses 20% of the body's resting energy usage. Most of that is keeping neurons polarised to the outside (ion pumps need ATP!!!). The body uses 25w resting and thus the brain is about 5w. Source: biology degree but like I said please take with the same amount of weight as a hallucinating LLM.
- apt-apt-apt-apt 1y agoGPT says: Unless you're a hamster hooked up to a Fitbit, it's more like 60–70W for a normal adult human. So the brain’s real power draw is more like 15–20W, not 5W Resting energy usage in humans is ~1200–1500 kcal/day, or about 60–70 watts, depending on the person. Logic holds, estimate is just low
- hdjdbdirbrbtv 1y agoLol thanks for the correction! like I said... it had been 20 years.. I misremembered the amounts :P