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Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming

nautil.us

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Re: Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming

#51

Post by nibs »

JonoBB wrote: post #23

I don't know if there is any statistical correlation or not, but (as the article alludes to) it does seem that super intelligent people are more prone to some kind of other deficiencies, and particularly social issues. Can anyone shed more light on whether this is true or not? Anecdotally, one of my best friends (extremely intelligent, Cum Laude engineering student) went "off the rails" a few years after graduating.…

The only health problems associated with higher intelligence (as opposed to either low intelligence or completely independent of intelligence) are [1] high functioning autism, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Two can be treated with pills when they are disruptive with relatively high success, and the other (Autism) is to me not a particularly net negative condition when high functioning (several immediately family members have it, so this is anecdotal). So the only byproduct of selecting for these genes, is it would compound the likelihood of one of these conditions. It sounds like your friend was in a period of disintegration [2]. Happens to most gifted people at some point early in life.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/1212254... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Disintegration

Re: Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming

#52

Post by crispyambulance »

JonoBB wrote: post #23

I don't know if there is any statistical correlation or not, but (as the article alludes to) it does seem that super intelligent people are more prone to some kind of other deficiencies, and particularly social issues. Can anyone shed more light on whether this is true or not? Anecdotally, one of my best friends (extremely intelligent, Cum Laude engineering student) went "off the rails" a few years after graduating.…

Intelligence, in real life, is quite a nebulous thing. We can perhaps measure an IQ number, observe that someone is "bright", or remark upon their achievements, but while all these things are "correlated", it is a loose correlation with many exceptions.

I am not convinced that producing people with high IQ's and declaring them "intelligent super-humans" will result in anything dramatic, unless that is followed up with a lifetime of enrichment: superb education, good parenting, and formative life-experiences.

I do volunteer work in an adult literacy program and, learning disabilities aside, some of these folks are truly very intelligent and fully capable but have been set-back in childhood and young adulthood because of circumstances beyond their control and utterly unrelated to genetics.

If we really want to create super-intelligent beings, there's a "low tech" way to do that will be far more effective than genetic engineering: treat education as a mission-critical priority and make sure kids are taken care of.

Re: Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming

#53

Post by jp555 »

davidiach wrote: post #10

If 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.

The concept in the movie "Code 46" where the global elite take a virus to learn a skill always stuck with me.

Skills based enhancement - becoming more empathetic or maybe more mathematical or acquiring novel light-sensitive retinal cells or biological radio seems more plausible than boosting "general intelligence" which might not be a thing at all.

Re: Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming

#54

Post by kbart »

compactmani wrote: post #44
JonoBB wrote: post #23

I don't know if there is any statistical correlation or not, but (as the article alludes to) it does seem that super intelligent people are more prone to some kind of other deficiencies, and particularly social issues. Can anyone shed more light on whether this is true or not? Anecdotally, one of my best friends (extremely intelligent, Cum Laude engineering student) went "off the rails" a few years after graduating.…

This is not at all my observation. I've noticed that the uncommonly (technically-scientifically) intelligent people I've been exposed to tended to lead very socially balanced and normal lives. They have also been some of the funniest people I've met too.

In my experience too, sense of humor correlates with broad intelligence much more than social awkwardness does. On the other hand, I know extremely gifted people in some narrow area plus few related (i.e. STEM subjects) that cannot even lead normal life without somebody else taking care of them and are below average on different subjects (i.e. languages). I think the problem is, that we don't even know, what intelligence is and how many different forms it has.

Re: Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming

#55

Post by RobertoG »

qaq wrote: post #13
davidiach wrote: post #10

If 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.

Probably not, but it's not a problem, because you are only going to realize after the fact.

Re: Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming

#56

Post by icebraining »

daveguy wrote: post #14
vdaniuk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Who said anything about manual labour?

Re: Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming

#57

Post by compactmani »

The issue I see with changing so many alleles is that we may not know all of the phenotypic consequences of each allele. Moving 10,000 alleles to the best intelligence settings might make people smarter, but genes are highly pleiotropic. Mutating 10,000 genes could have 10,000 phenotypic side effects.

How do you optimize: maximize intelligence subject to not messing up the organism too much. How would you do this for multiple phenotypes? Maximize height and intelligence subject to not messing up the organism too much.

Re: Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming

#59

Post by dragonwriter »

Severian wrote: post #16

Superhuman 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.

There appears to be considerable disagreement as to whether EQ measures any real underlying trait or has any independent utility in predicting/determining outcomes, e.g., in work.

Re: Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming

#60

Post by xyzzy123 »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #50
xyzzy123 wrote: post #45

I don't agree with the premise of the article. The idea that there are "better" versions of each intelligence-influencing allele - and that they simply linearly combine - seems ludicrous to me. It is equally plausible (and to my mind much more likely) that the many parameters influencing intelligence are linked in complex ways with no simple global optimum in sight.

I've read that many gifted children are utterly unfit for normal school. Some are even prone to killing themselves if not taken care of properly. Assuming we can indeed select for gifted embryos, and do so, the consequences are going to be… interesting.

I'm a bit wary of "giftedness" in intelligence discussions...

I think the author's argument is very weak, analogous to:

"Scientists have identified thousands of parameters influencing the efficiency of petrol-powered cars. Each parameter seems to influence the outcome by a small amount. If we simply chose the best value for each parameter, I predict that we could see cars with efficiency in the range of 500 miles per gallon".

A related argument (I think the one you are making) is that generally optimising one thing is going to trade off other things. So going all-in on fuel efficiency might impact crash resistance, for example.

The author's argument for general intelligence might be true if the basic architecture of our brains has a lot of room for improvement. This might be true, but it seems that evolution should have already exploited any low-hanging fruit.

This whole thing reminds me of the "humans only use 10% of their brains" flavour of reasoning.

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