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Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

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Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#11

Post by w1ntermute »

Animats wrote: post #7

OK, the big theme here is "innovation has slowed down, but this is being masked by all the activity around computers". So let's take a look at that. Way too many smart people are tied up doing rather banal things with computers, or in finance. That's capitalism in action. What isn't being worked on? Thiel is bothered by lack of progress in medicine. Medicine is now working on really hard problems, most of which are c…

> The average IQ is only 100

You do realize that's a tautology, right? There's no reason productivity couldn't be increased, and one potential method would be to boost human intelligence.

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#12

Post by Animats »

antisthenes wrote: post #9
Animats wrote: post #7

OK, the big theme here is "innovation has slowed down, but this is being masked by all the activity around computers". So let's take a look at that. Way too many smart people are tied up doing rather banal things with computers, or in finance. That's capitalism in action. What isn't being worked on? Thiel is bothered by lack of progress in medicine. Medicine is now working on really hard problems, most of which are c…

One of the hardest, but also the most pressing issues is regarding population growth. Should we artificially limit population growth? Can it be done in a way that isn't forceful, but perhaps with the right incentives? Should humanity, as a global society push for quality over quantity in reproduction? Is basic income still feasible in this scenario? It's an ethical and ideological mess and frankly, it'll require some…

For Europe and Japan, population is in decline. US population would be in decline if it were not for immigration. China is expected to max out around 2026. (The one-child policy worked.) India, though, has real problems.[1]

Two big problems we expected to have were overpopulation and running out of energy. Neither happened.

[1] http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/04/05/indias-population-in...

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#13

Post by strictnein »

w1ntermute wrote: post #11
Animats wrote: post #7

OK, the big theme here is "innovation has slowed down, but this is being masked by all the activity around computers". So let's take a look at that. Way too many smart people are tied up doing rather banal things with computers, or in finance. That's capitalism in action. What isn't being worked on? Thiel is bothered by lack of progress in medicine. Medicine is now working on really hard problems, most of which are c…

> The average IQ is only 100 You do realize that's a tautology, right? There's no reason productivity couldn't be increased, and one potential method would be to boost human intelligence.

And an IQ score of 100 in 1980 is not equivalent to an IQ score of 100 in 2016.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#14

Post by kordless »

w1ntermute wrote: post #11
Animats wrote: post #7

OK, the big theme here is "innovation has slowed down, but this is being masked by all the activity around computers". So let's take a look at that. Way too many smart people are tied up doing rather banal things with computers, or in finance. That's capitalism in action. What isn't being worked on? Thiel is bothered by lack of progress in medicine. Medicine is now working on really hard problems, most of which are c…

> The average IQ is only 100 You do realize that's a tautology, right? There's no reason productivity couldn't be increased, and one potential method would be to boost human intelligence.

It's certainly not the high plasticity of the brain holding back technology.

It's the average emotional intelligence of the human race in a given area combined with the average EI of another areas. Culture/areas/whatever that encourage a high amount of cognitive dissonance will give way to a "contagion" that gives rise to lower EIs through double binding communications between groups. It's better if you start out with a topic that is highly polarized, as that gives the contagion some energy to feed upon.

You see this with Trump, as he is in constant disagreement with himself in what he says, which is dove tailed in behind whatever blaming remark he made when he first started talking. This gets the dissonance going in groups who are, in general, disgruntled about whatever it is they are disgruntled about.

Sigh.

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#15

Post by w1ntermute »

strictnein wrote: post #13
w1ntermute wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The average IQ is only 100 You do realize that's a tautology, right? There's no reason productivity couldn't be increased, and one potential method would be to boost human intelligence.

And an IQ score of 100 in 1980 is not equivalent to an IQ score of 100 in 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

That's exactly my point.

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#16

Post by aaron695 »

w1ntermute wrote: post #11
Animats wrote: post #7

OK, the big theme here is "innovation has slowed down, but this is being masked by all the activity around computers". So let's take a look at that. Way too many smart people are tied up doing rather banal things with computers, or in finance. That's capitalism in action. What isn't being worked on? Thiel is bothered by lack of progress in medicine. Medicine is now working on really hard problems, most of which are c…

> The average IQ is only 100 You do realize that's a tautology, right? There's no reason productivity couldn't be increased, and one potential method would be to boost human intelligence.

Some say China is working on this issue with selective breeding etc.

You could at increasing IQ in very poor countries where lack of basic micronutrients is causing IQ issues.

But I think better group intelligence, using current intelligence in poor countries better, AI, productivity increase with better tools currently makes much more sense.

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#17

Post by mrep »

tristanj wrote: post #5
mrep wrote: post #4

Is there a transcript anywhere? I much prefer reading over watching/listening

Youtube has an auto-generated transcript feature. In the video description, click More->Transcript. Edit: actually don't use the YouTube transcripts, there's a human-curated transcript here http://conversationswithbillkristol.org/transcript/peter-thi...

Beautiful, thanks!

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#18

Post by brbsix »

antisthenes wrote: post #9
Animats wrote: post #7

OK, the big theme here is "innovation has slowed down, but this is being masked by all the activity around computers". So let's take a look at that. Way too many smart people are tied up doing rather banal things with computers, or in finance. That's capitalism in action. What isn't being worked on? Thiel is bothered by lack of progress in medicine. Medicine is now working on really hard problems, most of which are c…

One of the hardest, but also the most pressing issues is regarding population growth. Should we artificially limit population growth? Can it be done in a way that isn't forceful, but perhaps with the right incentives? Should humanity, as a global society push for quality over quantity in reproduction? Is basic income still feasible in this scenario? It's an ethical and ideological mess and frankly, it'll require some…

    Should humanity, as a global society push for quality over quantity in reproduction? Is basic income still feasible in this scenario?
This is an unpopular suggestion but simply ending the massive state-sponsored subsidization and propagandization of the opposite (e.g. glorification of single motherhood, third-world immigration) would be a great place to start.

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#19

Post by hammock »

w1ntermute wrote: post #11
Animats wrote: post #7

OK, the big theme here is "innovation has slowed down, but this is being masked by all the activity around computers". So let's take a look at that. Way too many smart people are tied up doing rather banal things with computers, or in finance. That's capitalism in action. What isn't being worked on? Thiel is bothered by lack of progress in medicine. Medicine is now working on really hard problems, most of which are c…

> The average IQ is only 100 You do realize that's a tautology, right? There's no reason productivity couldn't be increased, and one potential method would be to boost human intelligence.

I believe the point is we (HN readers) are mostly exposed to smarter than average folks in our daily lives. Our idea of an "average" person probably is smarter than the true average person. And we would do well to remember that, for example, 42% of Americans believe ghosts are real.

Re: Peter Thiel on the Global Economy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence [video]

#20

Post by LionessLover »

Animats wrote: post #7

OK, the big theme here is "innovation has slowed down, but this is being masked by all the activity around computers". So let's take a look at that. Way too many smart people are tied up doing rather banal things with computers, or in finance. That's capitalism in action. What isn't being worked on? Thiel is bothered by lack of progress in medicine. Medicine is now working on really hard problems, most of which are c…

The average IQ will always be 100. It will also always be perfectly normally distributed. Because it's designed that way.

http://www.michna.com/iq.htm

> In truth the IQ is a purely statistical measure. It has no direct relation to brain performance, is not proportional to it, and doesn't even have any linear or otherwise straightforward relation to it. The only thing you can say is that somebody with a higher IQ will show higher scores on most other brain performance tests as well, but the IQ doesn't say how much higher.

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