Today’s average low-end computer calculates at roughly 10 to the 11th (1011) or a hundred billion calculations per second. Scientists approximate that the level of pattern recognition necessary to tell Grandfather from Grandmother or distinguish the sound of hoofbeats from the sound of falling rain requires the brain to calculate at speeds of roughly 10 to the 16th (1016) cycles per second, or 10 million billion calculations per second. Using these figures as a baseline and projecting forward using Moore’s law, the average $1,000 laptop should be computing at the rate of the human brain in
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