That must be a somewhat daunting procedure for scientists in the genetic field; creating humans that are much, much smarter than themselves, likely rendering themselves obsolete very quickly.
Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming
11–20 of 83 posts
Re: Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming
#12Übermensch!
Haven't we heard this before?
Re: Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming
#13If I understand correctly, techniques like CRISPR might allow for for gene editing in adult humans. If so, how much would you be willing to pay to have your IQ increased by say 10 points? I think I would be willing to pay $10,000 if the risks of something bad happening because of the treatment would be low.
Y modifying genes of a living creature is obviously going to be a low risk procedure.
Re: Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming
#14I dont think we need smarter humans, i think we need more normal-intelligence humans who like working hard.
>normal-intelligence humans who like working hard Because working hard is a virtue, right?
You may have said that sarcastically, but there is hard work other than manual labor. I think 99% of what we call "intelligence" can be improved with hard work directed toward learning and practice.
Re: Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming
#15interesting study .. but it seems to be heading to a rather narrow direction .. humans are multifaceted beings that are far beyond what IQ can describe .. I wonder if the authors could conduct a study to measure IBM's Watson and see conclusion one could arrive at .. Have fun!
Re: Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming
#16Superhuman intelligence needs to have the corresponding nurturing factor as well. It won't do much good if you are born super-smart but are trapped in poverty or circumstances which limit your potential.
Plus there is also the EQ (emotional) quotient. Not many people are going to want your company if you are a super-intelligent asshole either.
Re: Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming
#17Allowing for all the assumptions in the article I'm not sure I'd want to go ahead with it.
Living in a world where you are that much smarter than anyone else could be intensely isolating, imagine been so smart that you would find every conversation with anyone who isn't similarly boosted boring.
> The alternative would be inequality of a kind never before experienced in human history.
That is a pretty chilling sentence and it's hard to argue, if you could engineer children for intelligence and it was fantastically expensive then that has some really nasty potential sociological outcomes (something that has been a Trope of sci-fi for at least a hundred years).
Re: Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming
#18Tldr? Title seems clickbaity and I don't want to reward that.
I wish there were a way to quantify that impulse, because that is often my first thought when presented a click-baity link: "Shall I award my attention to this"?
Re: Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming
#19Tldr? Title seems clickbaity and I don't want to reward that.
Nautilus make consistently good articles, you can excuse the headline this time.
TL;DR: Scientists have discovered some parts of DNA that reflect intelligence and advances in DNA manipulation could lead to being able to create super-intelligent humans.
Re: Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming
#20Screw genetic modification, I'd be interested to see what wacky deviations we see in a generation or so without it. Right now we've got assortative mating going on at a scale relatively unprecedented in history.