Asked by: Alex Cooper, Preston

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Human brains store information in a way that's not easily measured, nor easily comparable with computers. The unofficial record for remembering the digits of pi is 83,431 decimal places, which would require less than a hundred bytes to represent on a computer.

But anyone can instantly recognise several thousand human faces, from almost any angle and irrespective of expression, hairstyle or lighting. To do this with a computer would require storage of hundreds or thousands of gigabytes.

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Authors

luis villazon
Luis VillazonQ&A expert

Luis trained as a zoologist, but now works as a science and technology educator. In his spare time he builds 3D-printed robots, in the hope that he will be spared when the revolution inevitably comes.

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