A photo holds only ~42 bytes of information, argues Toby Ord
tobyordoxford · x · 2026-09-07
In a new essay "Curating the World", philosopher Toby Ord makes a counterintuitive claim: a photograph contains very little information — roughly 42 bytes. Pixel data vastly exceeds the meaningful content conveyed to a viewer once compressed to what actually registers. Understanding why, he argues, changes how we see photography and curation in an information-saturated age.
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