Efficiency Spells the Difference Between Biological Neurons and Their Artificial Counterparts - KDnuggets

Machine learning has made great advances, but as this series has discussed, doesn't have much in common with the way your brain works. Part 8 of the series explores a single facet of biological neurons which, so far, have kept them way ahead of their artificial counterparts: their efficiency. Your brain contains about 86 billion neurons, which are crammed into a volume of somewhat over one liter. Although machine learning can do many things which the human brain cannot, the brain is able to perform continuous speech recognition, visual interpretation, and a host of other things, all while dissipating about 12 watts. In comparison, my laptop draws about 65 watts and my desktop machine draws over 200 watts, and neither of them is capable of running the huge ML networks which are in use today.