Mike Frank Compares Brain and AI Energy and Data Scale

Mike Frank notes that a 4-bit sparse floating-point operation on Nvidia's latest chips costs about the same energy (30 femtojoules) as a synaptic firing, though the brain has orders of magnitude more connections; he also estimates a human brain ingests 7TB of visual data in a lifetime, comparable to AI training data volumes.

2026-11-12 ~ 2026-11-12 · 2 related posts

• A 4-bit sparse flop and a synaptic firing both cost ~30 femtojoules, but the brain has far more connections — MikePFrank · 2026-11-12
• A human brain sees about 7TB of visual data in 20 years — roughly on par with AI training data — MikePFrank · 2026-11-12