Elon Musk has long been concerned about the “bandwidth problem” – the gap between our inner thoughts and feelings, and what we can express in real-time. To bridge this issue, he aims to create an interface allowing humans to communicate directly with computers.
However, new research published in Neuron reveals that human brains process information at a fixed rate of 10 bits per second. In contrast, sensory systems gather data at one billion bits per second. This disparity may contribute to the illusion that our minds can think infinitely fast – known as “the Musk illusion.”
Markus Meister, a neuroscientist at Caltech, notes, “The human brain is much less impressive than we might think… It’s incredibly slow when it comes to making decisions, and ridiculously slower than any of the devices we interact with.”
Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-human-brain-operates-at-a-stunningly-slow-pace