Moravec on Intelligence and Raw Compute
sirbayes · x · 2026-07-12
This post quotes Hans Moravec's 1976 article, "The role of raw power in intelligence," highlighting its core arguments:
- Intelligence may not be as difficult to construct as assumed, given that natural intelligence evolved independently in multiple animal lineages.
- Comparing the information-processing power of contemporary computers to intelligent nervous systems, the article estimated a gap of about one million times, a disparity that heavily skews current assessments of research progress.
- The article further argued that the trajectory of electronics would eventually bridge this compute gap, predicting it could close within a decade.
Such early literature reflects a foundational AGI perspective: intelligence progress might depend heavily on "raw compute" rather than just novel theories.
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