Gilder's Law

Biological Parallel

Communication infrastructure scales faster than computational units—bandwidth growth outpaces processing growth. In neural development, dendritic arbors expand rapidly, adding thousands of synaptic connections per neuron while neuron count remains fixed post-development. Adult human cortical neurons form 4 synapses per connection on average, creating dense communication networks without adding computational units. Myelination represents a communication infrastructure upgrade: vertebrate nervous systems evolved myelin sheaths that accelerate signal transmission 15-60 fold without increasing neuron count. When communication becomes cheap, systems restructure around connection density rather than node count. The principle: adding wiring scales faster and cheaper than adding processors.