Dendrites in the service of artificial intelligence

One of the main drawbacks of current AI systems is the amount of energy required to fuel the vast amounts of computing power they need to operate. This has led to the seemingly absurd situation of tech giants such as Microsoft and Google moving to secure the outputs of whole nuclear power stations to support their activities. The human brain, by comparison, is vastly more energy efficient in its operation, though AI clearly outstrips it in the potential scale of its activities.

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