Shark Tank India judge and Shaadi.com founder Anupam Mittal has recently weighed in on the ongoing debate about AI potentially replacing humans. Mittal argues that the technology is still far from replicating the complexity of the human brain. In a widely shared Linkedin post titled "Is AI about to replace humans?", he provided a simple yet clear answer: "Not anytime soon."
In an extensive post on the professional networking site LinkedIn, Mittal described that replicating a single human brain with current AI methods would require a data center the size of a football field operating at full capacity, merely to imitate how a person perceives, thinks, learns, and makes decisions in real time. He highlighted that, in comparison, the human brain accomplishes all these functions using only 20 watts of energy, which is less than a typical household light bulb.
Mittal also pointed out that to fully replicate the human brain’s biological components such as neurons, synapses, chemistry, and plasticity, a computer the size of Earth itself would be necessary. "That's the gap people forget," he noted. While he concedes that AI excels at tasks like automation, repetition, and large-scale pattern recognition, Mittal argues that qualities like creativity, judgment, context, resilience, and taste simply can’t be reduced to mere computations.
According to Mittal, a fundamental change in the way intelligence is calculated would be necessary to replace human creativity, rather than simply using larger models and more GPUs. Until that happens, he thinks AI will continue to be a strong tool but not a replacement for human inventiveness. "The real miracle of the brain isn't intelligence," he concluded. "It's all the complexity that fits inside your skull, runs on sugar and oxygen, and dissipates less heat than a light bulb. That's the human flex Al can't replicate."
Read the full post by Anupam Mittal here:
'Is Al about to replace humans?'
Short answer: Not anytime soon
To match a single human brain using today's Al approaches, you'd need something close to a football-field-sized data centre running flat out - just to mimic how one person sees, thinks, learns, and decides in real time.
All that to replicate what your brain does on 20 watts.
If you go further and try to replicate the brain biologically- neurons, synapses, chemistry, plasticity you're no longer talking about a data center.
Theoretically, it can be done but you need a computer the size of planet Earth
That's the gap people forget
Al is exceptional at automation, repetition, and pattern extraction at scale.
But judgment, creativity, context, taste, and knowing when not to act aren't just more parameters.
They've evolved over millions of years & are emergent properties of a system that learns continuously, reasons across domains, and compresses reality with extreme efficiency.
Until we see a fundamental shift in how intelligence is computed - not just bigger models and more GPUs -replacing human creativity isn't a near-term threat.
The real miracle of the brain isn't intelligence.
It's all the complexity that fits inside your skull, runs on sugar and oxygen, and dissipates less heat than a light bulb.
That's the human flex Al can't replicate.
