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Human thought crawls at 10 bits per second, Caltech study finds (www.techspot.com)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by FlyingSquid@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Thanks to @General_Effort@lemmy.world for the links!

Here’s a link to Caltech’s press release: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/thinking-slowly-the-paradoxical-slowness-of-human-behavior

Here’s a link to the actual paper (paywall): https://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273(24)00808-0

Here’s a link to a preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.10234

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[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

What? This is the perfectly normal meaning of bits. 2^10 = 1024.

[–] meyotch@slrpnk.net 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Only when you are framing it in terms of information entropy. I think many of those misunderstanding the study are thinking of bits as part of a standard byte. It’s a subtle distinction but that’s where I think the disconnect is

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yes, the study is probably fine, it's the article that fails to clarify before using it, that they are not talking about bits the way bits are normally understood.

[–] credo@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I think we understand a computer can read this text far faster than any of us. That is not the same as conscious thought though- it’s simply following an algorithm of yes/no decisions.

I’m not arguing with anything here, just pointing out the difference in what CPUs do and what human brains do.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world -1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

a computer can read this text far faster than any of us.

I think you missed the comprehend part.

[–] credo@lemmy.world -3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

No i didn’t. Feed a book into chat GPT. You will see what fast comprehension is. I think you missed the consciousness part.

Stop being an ass.

Edit: The average person knows approximately 15-20,000 words. This is between 14 and 15 bits minimum to address every word independently. But I’m no brainologist, and I don’t know that’s how processing speech actually works. This is all just for comparison to bitwise operations.

[–] deranger@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 day ago

comprehension - the action or capability of understanding something.

LLMs don’t understand anything they read.