The brain as a computer analogy is the best thing we have, but we’re still very far away from truly understanding it’s complex engineering. One fascinating bit the NYT article mentions is the power that an artificial brain would need to consume for it to work.
By 2025, the memory of an artificial brain would use nearly a gigawatt of power, the amount currently consumed by all of Washington, D.C.
In contrast our brain uses much less power, but has the capacity to store an estimated 3 petabytes, which is approximately the archived contents of the internet.
Compare this with your brain, which uses about 12 watts, an amount that supports not only memory but all your thought processes. This is less than the energy consumed by a typical refrigerator light, and half the typical needs of a laptop computer. Cutting power consumption by half while increasing computing power many times over is a pretty challenging design standard. As smart as we are, in this sense we are all dim bulbs.
