Insanely bad compared to books or other permanent records. The human memory system did not evolve to be an accurate record of the past. It evolved to keep us alive by remembering dangerous things.
Books and other permanent records of human thought are part of the human memory system. Has been for millennia. If you include oral tradition, which is less precise, but collectively much more precise than any individual thought or memory, it goes much further.
We are fundamentally storytelling creatures, because it is a massive boost to our individual capabilities.
When I say, "Insanely bad compared to what else in the animal kingdom?" and you respond with, "compared to books or other permanent records"
"Books or permanent records" are not in the animal kingdom.
Apples to Apples we are the best or so very nearly the best in every category of intelligence on the planet IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM that when in one specific test another animal beats a human the gap is barely measurable.
3 primate species where very concise tests showed that they were close to or occasionally slightly better than humans in specifically rigged short term memory tests (after being trained and put up against humans going in blind).
I've never heard of any test showing an animal to be significantly more intelligent than humans in any measure that we have come up with to measure intelligence by.
That being said, I believe it is possible that some animals are either close enough to us that they deserve to be called sentient, and I believe it is possible that other creatures on this planet have levels of intelligence in specialized areas that humans can never hope to approach unaided by tools, but as far as broad range intelligence, I think we're this planets' possibly undeserved leaders.
I don't think working memory has much at all to do with sentience.
The conversation was more about long-term memory, which has not been sufficiently studied in animals (nor am I certain it can be effectively studied at all).
Even then I don't think there is a clear relationship between long-term memory and sentience either.
And yet I have vivid memories of many situations that weren't dangerous in the slightest, and essentially verbatim recall of a lot of useless information e.g. quotes from my favorite books and movies.
I am not sure exactly what point you're trying to make, but I do think it's reductive at best to describe memory as a tool for avoiding/escaping danger, and misguided to evaluate it in the frame of verbatim recall of large volumes of information.
