• Why Are We So Slow? The 10 Bits/s Paradox of Human Cognition

    A lot of gems in here:

    1. Despite our sensory systems processing data at a rate of ~10⁹ bits/s, human behavior operates at a glacial pace of just 10 bits/s. The authors propose that the brain operates in two modes: the “outer brain” handles fast, high-dimensional sensory inputs, while the “inner brain” processes the reduced information needed for decision-making.

    2. The upper bound of everything you ever learn and store in your brain might be about 4 GB.

      So even if a person soaks up information at the perceptual limit of a Speed Card champion, does this 24 hours a day without sleeping, and lives for 100 years, they will have acquired approximately 3 × 1010 bits < 4 GB. After including the information from the genome, this still fits comfortably on the key-chain thumb drive you carry in your pocket

    3. How can humans get away with just 10 bits/s? The tautological answer here is that cognition at such a low rate is sufficient for survival. More precisely, our ancestors have chosen an ecological niche where the world is slow enough to make survival possible… This contributes to the common perception among teenagers that “reality is broken”, leading them to seek solace in fast-paced video games. Previous generations are no exceptions – they instead sought out the thrills of high-speed sports like skiing or mountain biking. It appears that the everyday tasks feel unbearably slow for these thrill-seekers, so pushing themselves to the cognitive throughput limit is a rewarding experience all by itself.

    4. So the discussion of whether autonomous cars will achieve humanlevel performance in traffic already seems quaint: roads, bridges, and intersections are all designed for creatures that process at 10 bits/s. When the last human driver finally retires, we can update the infrastructure for machines with cognition at kilobits/s. By that point, humans will be advised to stay out of those ecological niches, just as snails should avoid the highways.