How powerful is the brain compared to a computer? originally appeared on Quora - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.
Answer by Yohan John, Ph.D in Cognitive and Neural Systems, on Quora:
For the time being, people and computers seem to have complementary skills. This means that computers are very good at tasks that humans are bad at, and humans are exceptionally good at certain kinds of tasks that computers simply cannot perform yet.
Computers are extremely fast, so when a task can be translated (by a human!) into an algorithm (a set of step-by-step instructions), a computer will typically accomplish it much more quickly and accurately than the average human. This kind of task includes mathematical calculations, and also repetitive tasks that humans quickly get bored by.
Humans are spectacular at several things, including pattern recognition, language abilities, and creative thinking. Computers are rapidly improving at pattern recognition, but most programs still don't do as well as children. A classic example of pattern recognition is face recognition. We are capable of recognizing faces in a variety of contexts. We can even recognize faces that have aged, or are disguised, or are obscured by facial hair. Computers are not nearly as good as humans at such tasks.
So computers are more powerful that humans when it comes to executing simple step-by-step instructions. Humans are more powerful than computers at tasks that are not easily broken into simple steps. The fields of computer science, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are aimed at breaking down problems into 'byte-sized' chunks that are 'digestible' by computers. So for now computers are informational babies — they cannot 'cook' for themselves.
This question originally appeared on Quora - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions:
