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210 IQ Is Not Enough

taylor.town

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Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#261

Post by 827a »

Arch-TK wrote: post #83
827a wrote: post #4

The "world's smartest man" very recently predicted on X that Bitcoin would hit $220k by the end of the year. [1] Here's the thing: IQ probably doesn't mean much of anything. But it is one of only a handful of ways we have to benchmark intelligence. The training of AI systems critically requires benchmarks to understand gain/loss in training and determine if minute changes in the system is actually winging more intell…

This is a weird argument. First off, we don't have a good way to actually measure an individual's intelligence. IQ is actually meant to correlate with g which is a hidden factor we're trying to measure. IQ tests are good insofar as you look at the results of them from the perspective of a population. In these cases individual variation in how well it correlates smooths out. We design IQ tests and normalise IQ scores…

My point is to state that one of two things must be true: Either IQ does not really measure Intelligence, or Intelligence (being the thing IQ measures or correlates to) isn't much of a desirable quality for agentic systems to have. I suspect its a mix. The people on the upper end of the IQ spectrum tend to lead wholly uninspiring lives; the 276 guy isn't the only example, fraud or not, there's a couple university professors with relatively average publishing history, a couple suicides, a couple wacko cult leaders, a couple self-help gurus... and the goat, Terrance Tao, he's up there, but its interesting how poorly the measure correlates with anything we'd describe as "success".

The apologists enter the chat and state "well, its because they're frauds or they're gaming the system" without an ounce of recognition that this is exactly what we're designing AI systems to do: Cheat the test. If you expect being able to pass intelligence evals as being a way to grow intelligence, well, I suspect that will work out just about as well as IQ tests do for identifying individuals capable of things like highly creative invention.

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#262

Post by 827a »

__s wrote: post #7
827a wrote: post #4

The "world's smartest man" very recently predicted on X that Bitcoin would hit $220k by the end of the year. [1] Here's the thing: IQ probably doesn't mean much of anything. But it is one of only a handful of ways we have to benchmark intelligence. The training of AI systems critically requires benchmarks to understand gain/loss in training and determine if minute changes in the system is actually winging more intell…

tbf you started with what intelligence is in rejecting their claim of being the smartest: ability to predict the future

True: A shadow take that I have been noodling on is that "ability to correctly predict the future" is actually the only true characteristic of intelligence. All other things we might label as intellect are either expressions of that, or something different that is more accurately categorized under a different label.

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#263

Post by 827a »

programjames wrote: post #60
827a wrote: post #4

The "world's smartest man" very recently predicted on X that Bitcoin would hit $220k by the end of the year. [1] Here's the thing: IQ probably doesn't mean much of anything. But it is one of only a handful of ways we have to benchmark intelligence. The training of AI systems critically requires benchmarks to understand gain/loss in training and determine if minute changes in the system is actually winging more intell…

> What I deeply believe is: We're never going to invent superintelligence, not because its impossible for computers to achieve, but because we don't even know what intelligence is. Speak for yourself, not all of humanity. There are plenty of rigorous, mostly equivalent definitions for intelligence: The ability to find short programs that explain phenomena (compression). The capability to figure out how to do things (…

If you want to have a discussion in good faith, then you need to work on your rhetoric. People are unlikely to want to engage with you, here or in your real life, if you regularly talk like that. Seek help.

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#264

Post by garte »

jcdny wrote: post #257
Viliam1234 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 210 IQ will never be enough. $20M dollars will never be enough. At least, $20M dollars exists, while 210 IQ is mathematically nonsense -- it means "one out of several trillions", which exceeds the human population. You would have to colonize the entire galaxy, and then be the smartest human in that galaxy. If even that is not enough, I am giving up.

Or the distribution could be leptokurtic like almost everything in the real world. Also galaxies are bigger than you think.

You took those trillions literally, it's not meant like that. It's a general observation on how abstract the measuring is.

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#265

Post by moi2388 »

jmull wrote: post #216
moi2388 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It correlates strongly with problem solving abilities on most tasks, predicts health outcomes, educational outcomes, career outcomes and finances all pretty significantly.

I don't see the particularly useful/meaningful part here. Who knows what you're referring to, but generally IQ tests measure general mental abilities on things society generally finds good. That's fine, but general education does the same in far more detail and comes with a robust achievement measurement (grades, and graduation/degrees). IQ competes with other measures that exist anyway and comes up short.

You don’t see any of these strong correlations as meaningful?

I take it you haven’t encountered people with an in of 70 before? They are basically untrainable..

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#266

Post by DrScientist »

stego-tech wrote: post #91
tetris11 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno - I think it's hard for a lot of us who rolled the dice on our interests early on, picked the winning combo of CS + Finance, and then just raced ahead in the career ladder over our peers as software work consumed the world. Now it's ten years later, those ladders have disappeared, many of us seeing the writing on the wall, and wondering whether we were anything special at all. (The answer of course is no, but i…

As a former gifted kid who has had their fair share of struggles around identity, competency, and success, having to redefine each multiple times as the world shifts around me and ladders are either yanked up or burned down just as I arrive to climb them: It sucks. It sucks ass . It has lead to many a night shouting in rage, anger, depression, and malaise. It continues to incense me as I see reprehensible actions rec…

20 different British Prime ministers went to a single school ( high school I think in US terms ) - Eton.

The way you get into Eton is largely via money and social connections - not excellence ( though it's a good school ).

What's interesting is that 18 of those were before 1964. Then there was a gap of ~50 years, and then we got 2 in quick succession recently.

So social mobility ( and the idea of a meritocracy ) flourished for a bit, but we've gone in reverse recently.

I see the same happening in the US - Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer, Trump is a billioniare, Hilary ( the almost president ) was the wife of previous president, George W Bush was the son of a previous President.

One of the problems is that many successful people now seem to believe it's all down to them, and therefore the world can be split into the deserving and undeserving.

That's simply not true - life is more complex than that - and sure talent and hardwork matter - and matter a lot - but Jeff Bezos isn't worth ( measured in output ) ~1 million times more than his average employee - there is nothing Amazon has created that wouldn't have happened anyway without Jeff - he didn't invent online shopping or cloud computing - though he did execute very very well.

And let me be clear Jeff is very good at his job and deserves to reap the benefit of that - but ~250 billion in one persons hands isn't proportionate - he's not worth that, and he has spent some of that putting Katy Perry into space - I'd argue not the best use of the worlds resources.

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#267

Post by Arch-TK »

827a wrote: post #261
Arch-TK wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a weird argument. First off, we don't have a good way to actually measure an individual's intelligence. IQ is actually meant to correlate with g which is a hidden factor we're trying to measure. IQ tests are good insofar as you look at the results of them from the perspective of a population. In these cases individual variation in how well it correlates smooths out. We design IQ tests and normalise IQ scores…

My point is to state that one of two things must be true: Either IQ does not really measure Intelligence, or Intelligence (being the thing IQ measures or correlates to) isn't much of a desirable quality for agentic systems to have. I suspect its a mix. The people on the upper end of the IQ spectrum tend to lead wholly uninspiring lives; the 276 guy isn't the only example, fraud or not, there's a couple university pro…

You are throwing around anecdotes. They're not that helpful.

It's worth noting that success in life (for whatever that is defined as) is not the same thing as intelligence. And being intelligent isn't even enough for you to be successful in intellectual pursuits either.

You can be highly intelligent and receive no education, have no access to books (or be unable to read) and then you might be able to intelligently solve the problem of eating a sandwich but that wont get you anywhere.

Likewise, you can be intelligent and have access to the right tools but you might be too anxious to try to excell. Maybe you're intelligent and have unmedicated ADHD causing you to constantly fail to actually get anything completes in a timely manner.

There are a lot of things between IQ and success in life. But we do know for a fact that when controlling for other factors, we see positive trends between IQ and life success. That doesn't mean that IQ is the only factor.

Certainly the fact you can pull out a handful of anecdotes about high IQ individuals and talk about how uninspiring their lives are doesn't mean that all high IQ people are living uninspiring lives, or that living an inspiring life is uncorrelated with IQ, or that there is even a meaningful definition of an inspiring life.

Lastly, please note that there are lots of successful people who had an IQ test where they scored really low, and lots of unsuccessful people who had an IQ test where they scored high. This will in part be due to the fact that IQ doesn't corelate at 100% with anything, but also due to the fact that IQ doesn't correlate with itself over time at 100%. You can do an IQ test on an exceptionally bad day, or an exceptionally good day, you might get an IQ test which is not good at measuring you in particular. That's why when we do research on this topic we apply multiple different tests, we control for variables, and we run these on large groups of people.

Whether intelligence is useful for a model or not, who knows. All I can tell you with relative confidence is that IQ tests are designed with humans in mind, and when you apply them to models, it is no longer clear what they measure.

One thing models don't have (yet) is lives which they can live and which we can study.

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#268

Post by DrScientist »

WJW wrote: post #231
DrScientist wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Most of life is like a 100m race where it's allowed to turn up and start early. ie anybody can easily beat Usain Bolt by just starting a few seconds before him. There are some things which are perhaps a bit more like the highjump - where I'm never going to beat the worlds best no matter how many attempts I do - however these kind of things are very much the exception, not the rule.

Most fields which are like highjumps have considerable incentives to develop tools to aid in performance. Even the greatest high jumper can't beat a muggle with a ladder, after all. Nor is any weightlifter a match for a forklift.

Fair point which would suggest that's why such things are the exception.

'All analogies are flawed'

A quick google search suggests this universal law hasn't been claimed - thus I'm claiming it for my own - DrScientists Law.

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#269

Post by dahart »

ekianjo wrote: post #260
dahart wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it say anything? The 100 meter dash wasn’t designed by the fastest 100 meter runner, but it’s still perfectly capable of identifying a winner.

Bad analogies are bad analogies. Intelligence is much more complex than running.

Hehehe you got the first part right. Human running requires intelligence, I don’t know how to separate those or evaluate their complexity, and I bet you don’t either. So do you know anything about how IQ tests work? You know they’re timed, right?

Re: 210 IQ Is Not Enough

#270

Post by dahart »

notahacker wrote: post #177
dahart wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it say anything? The 100 meter dash wasn’t designed by the fastest 100 meter runner, but it’s still perfectly capable of identifying a winner.

Sure, but setting questions you theoretically need a certain threshold of ability in pattern recognition to pass without actually having that ability feels like trying to design a 100m dash whilst not really knowing what a sprint or a metre is. You might end up selecting for outlying distance runners instead...

Sure, but that’s not how IQ tests are designed, nor what IQ is. Most people understand the concept of intelligence, regardless of their IQ score. The methodology of IQ testing doesn’t require having a question that only the “smartest” person in the world can understand in order to identify that person. Many of the metrics are based on speed, they are literally a race similar to 100m dash. Another metric is working memory, which is easily understood by someone without a good working memory. Take a closer look at the metrics and methodology of modern IQ tests, and it might become more clear why the parent’s question is a bit hyperbolic and/or naïve. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wechsler_Adult_Intelligence_Sc...
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