Compute is not the limiting factor for mammalian intelligence. Mammalian brains are organized to maximize communication. The gray matter, where most compute is done, is mostly on the surface and the white matter which dominate long range communication, fills the interior, communicating in the third dimension.
If you plot volume of white matter vs. gray matter across the various mammal brains, you find that the volume of white matter grows super linearly with volume of gray matter. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1716956116
As brains get larger, you need a higher ratio of communication/compute.
Your calculations, and Cotras as well, focus on FLOPs but the intelligence is created by communication.
Compute is not the limiting factor for mammalian intelligence. Mammalian brains are organized to maximize communication. The gray matter, where most compute is done, is mostly on the surface and the white matter which dominate long range communication, fills the interior, communicating in the third dimension.
If you plot volume of white matter vs. gray matter across the various mammal brains, you find that the volume of white matter grows super linearly with volume of gray matter. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1716956116
As brains get larger, you need a higher ratio of communication/compute.
Your calculations, and Cotras as well, focus on FLOPs but the intelligence is created by communication.
Interesting! How do you think this dimension of intelligence should be calculated? Are there any good articles on the subject?