
Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/18/genius/super_intelligent-humans-are-coming
======
McDiesel
Can we just work on increasing the amount of intelligent human beings before
we jump to super-intelligent? Thanks.

------
Taek
There are a lot of open questions with regards to intelligence manipulation,
both scientific and ethical. We're like a child accessing the internet for the
first time. We don't know what it is, how it works, and we've been told there
are things we should never do.

Genetic engineering of humans is likely to be an extremely powerful tool, and
we aren't going to understand it until we start playing around. We've already
got some cognitive baselines for other species, perhaps we can start trying to
manipulate their intelligence and see what happens.

And we can try to perform 'ethical eugenics' on ourselves. Imagine having 15
or 100 embryos, and picking your favorite. If you only intended on raising 1
child in the first place, I don't see how this is wrong. It's less grey than
abortion. Having sets of 'chosen' babies will give us a ton of information
about our genetics, even if we don't start manipulating their genes directly.

I'm within a decade of having children, and I really hope that I can
'optimize' at least one of the multiple children I intend to have. I feel like
the potential scientific progress is worth the risk.

------
bencollier49
If 1000 genes have an impact on intelligence, "activating" them all is likely
to result in illness.

We've seen something similar with Schizophrenia - get one related gene variant
and you get someone with creative flair or good pattern recognition. Inherit 5
and they become paranoid and hear voices.

------
lettergram
The largest impact on our brains isn't our genetics. Our ability to recall
information has become moot, I know I personally just store an index of all
the information I lean in my brain. Then if I'm like, "Oh, this can be solved
with <insert solution>" I just look it up, since I have all the worlds
previous knowledge literally a few typed words and 2 - 3 clicks away.

Further, every gene we alter effects other genes, if we alter a large portion
to increase our brain capacity we really have no idea what else will be
effected.

Worse yet, we really don't have a "good" measurement of IQ to begin with. Is
being able to do spacial tasks really intelligence, perhaps we should focus on
memorization a bit more... it is really all arbitrary.

The only real genetic benefits to our brain come from improved wiring, i.e.
able to complete concurrent tasks, storing memories more efficiently, etc. The
only way I see any of this being improved are from significant advances in
neuroscience and genetics, and we make the assumption that we can simulate all
of this or experiment on humans (pretty large assumption here).

Everything is possible given enough time, but I do not think we are anywhere
near close enough to do genetic modifications to improve the brain. Perhaps we
could do some bio-machine hybridization, i.e. connect my brain to the internet
or something, that's a bit closer, but still 20+ years out (if I had to
guess).

FYI, I actually am trying to start a company to gather more accurate
information and augment the brain:
[http://synaptitude.me/](http://synaptitude.me/)

~~~
bhouston
> Further, every gene we alter effects other genes, if we alter a large
> portion to increase our brain capacity we really have no idea what else will
> be effected.

I agree completely. There are tons of interactions. It is a incredibly complex
process to genetically engineer improved intelligence in any significant
fashion.

> Worse yet, we really don't have a "good" measurement of IQ to begin with. Is
> being able to do spacial tasks really intelligence, perhaps we should focus
> on memorization a bit more... it is really all arbitrary.

I disagree. We have a decent measurement, but we do not have a good
understanding of the neurological basis of it all:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_\(psychometrics\))

> The only real genetic benefits to our brain come from improved wiring, i.e.
> able to complete concurrent tasks, storing memories more efficiently, etc

This is pretty simplistic and I think wrong. Our brains wiring is the only
real difference between us and monkeys (and every other animal for that
matter), but that different "wiring" (more and different structures) makes a
massive difference. To dismiss "wiring" differences like this is insane.

> Perhaps we could do some bio-machine hybridization, i.e. connect my brain to
> the internet or something, that's a bit closer, but still 20+ years out (if
> I had to guess).

Sounds like an
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exocortex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exocortex)

------
hyperion2010
I see many posts here asking about the genetics of intelligence. Here is the
best review to date (it is open access) [1]. The authors have been studying
the genetics of intelligence for over 30 years. The tl;dr is that we know if
no single genetic switch that can increase intelligence, there seem to be many
little switches that give rise to the normal IQ distribution.

1\.
[http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/mp201410...](http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/mp2014105a.html)

~~~
tokenadult
As I commented on this interesting article when it was a submission to Hacker
News, "Robert Plomin and Ian Deary are mainstream researchers on the behavior
genetics of human intelligence, the authors of well regarded textbooks
(Plomin), popular books (both), and primary research articles (both) on
various related topics. Their joint point of view as expressed in the review
article published today is not the exact point of view of all researchers in
the field, but I thought it would do as a discussion-starter here on Hacker
News.

"A crucial detail (Deary and Plomin would both agree about this, but it hasn't
come up in the discussion here yet) is that heritablity has NOTHING to do with
modifiability. It is quite possible in principle that a novel environmental
intervention might be discovered that could boost most people's intelligence.
It is even possible that the most effective intervention might have a gene-
environment (G × E) interaction such that the intervention would most help
people with lowest IQ, and least help people who already have high IQs. No
such intervention that human beings can direct purposefully has yet been
found, but it is clear from the Flynn effect[1] that something in the
environment can have powerful effects in raising average IQ levels of whole
countries, as has happened in the developed world throughout the last century
(for as long as IQ tests have been around).

"It is correct that people marry and have children on bases other than just
shared level of intelligence. (But living in the same town, and completing
higher education at similar ages, and pursuing compatible occupations for
marriage, etc. is correlated with IQ.) It is still far too early to say how
rapidly human populations might see noticeable effects from assortative mating
by IQ. It is reasonably clear that often-feared dysenic trends probably are
NOT happening--the lowest-IQ people in the world population don't reproduce at
all, and high-IQ people actually have reasonable numbers of children to
replicate their genes. In any event, the favorable environmental trends have
SWAMPED whatever genetic trends are going on for IQ in the whole human
population, and people are getting smarter all over the world, according to
the research on the Flynn effect.

"It is still a hard problem to identify anything at all meaningful and
replicable about how gene differences influence IQ differences, even though it
is now settled wisdom that they do. Human IQ, as the article says, is
influenced by MANY genes, and many of those genes interact with one another in
ways that are not understood at all yet."

[1]
[https://www.ted.com/talks/james_flynn_why_our_iq_levels_are_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/james_flynn_why_our_iq_levels_are_higher_than_our_grandparents)

[http://blog.ted.com/2013/09/26/further-reading-on-the-
flynn-...](http://blog.ted.com/2013/09/26/further-reading-on-the-flynn-
effect/)

------
ams6110
"optimistically, this might someday be possible"

Seems a bit less certain than the title.

~~~
buraksarica
Then post wouldn't show up in the first page. HNO (hacker news optimization
:P)

------
AJ007
"Superintelligence" by Nick Bostrom is well worth the read on this topic.
Thanks to Elon Musk for recommending it.

Roughly speaking, Nick suggests that human biology does have a limit, and AI
will jump far ahead in the time that it does take to use eugenics to boost
human intelligence.

------
kingkawn
The depth of control over raw genetic material that occurs within each living
thing is complex to an order not yet close to a meaningful understanding. Gene
methylation alone can render a gene meaningless for you, your children, and
theirs.

It is the scope of the remaining unknowns in this field that allow us to
project our speculative hopes onto them.

------
cpwright
The chicken analogy doesn't sit right with me because there are far more
generations of chickens over a given period of time; and additionally the
trait that you want to select for in a chicken is clear. You want the biggest
chicken in the least amount of time.

Intelligence is only one trait out of many that you would like to select for.
Attractiveness, strength, health, etc. all matter just as much. Balancing
competing concerns is harder than just making a fat chicken.

------
Morgawr
Did anybody else notice that the chicken in the picture is possibly the same
chicken at different stages of growth?

------
netcan
I normally balance on the relatively skeptical side on most things. But topics
like this make me giddy.

No doubt consequences and roadblocks will abound. But if superhuman
intelligence is coming in some form (and I think it is), I'm excited.
Embarrassingly so.

The 'what will happen?' story is hard to pin down. What are the emotional
impacts of owning a 100X better than Einstein brain? What are the social
impacts? Does collaboration work better? Human intelligence enabled a step
change in mammalian collaboration during the paleolithic revolution.

Genetic engineering is not the only potential path either. Technological
access to information extends the human cognitive potential. The interface
between mind and machine may reach revolutionary points. Our minds have
different learning capabilities at 20 days, 20 months or 20 years old. Can
that be hacked? Can we have all these capabilities at once, for extended
periods?

Like I said, giddy.

------
swalsh
I stopped reading the article about halfway through, because it didn't seem
like anything radically new... but the one comment i'd make is that it's clear
a combination of genetics and environmental factors affect intelligence, and
frankly both are improving. The article seems to go on about how genes are
improving, however the internet is having a pretty significant effect too.

A well built house can be renovated from something that looks terrible, to
something people will pay loads of money for. A fully functional brain can be
renovated too. People can learn how to think, and while there are parts that
are quite degenerate, there are a greater number of parts that help people
learn.

------
tucosan
The author of that piece on Nautilus also published a paper on the topic:
[http://arxiv.org/abs/1408.3421](http://arxiv.org/abs/1408.3421)

------
Detrus
I remember from a documentary about IQs that it gives no advantage to hunters.
At least hunters who use hunter gatherer technology.

It may be correlated to better brain quality or whatever, but it is an
adaptation that gives an advantage only in the modern world. Some tasks are
done better by a lesser mind.

------
wahsd
Seems we are more likely to move into rather dark conjecture. For some reason,
humans seems to be rather convinced of themselves, in spite of there really
being no evidence for any kind of justification. We are facing a future that
is being wholly underestimated where the USA is ushering in an existence that
is dominated by control and oppression and abuse; how can that be any kind of
indication that there are, let alone will be super intelligent humans. I think
someone has been reading too many scifi novels and listening to bamboozlers.

There is no objective evidence that we are getting any more intelligent than
past intellectuals even if we are simply just building on top of previous
achievements. Just alone the notion that you would not realize that our
"achievement" is just building upon achievements of the past is proof enough
that there really has been little to no improvement. Call me when humanity has
been able to wrestle itself away from the mental parasite that is religion.
Then we can talk about the possibility of super intelligent humans. Let's the
get the blatantly obvious mental health issues out of the way first.

~~~
mo1ok
Religion a "mental parasite?" I doubt you've known very many intelligent
people in your life. I know some very successful, top-of-the-bell-curve people
who are religious. Get real.

Also, Flynn effect.

~~~
ozy23378
> top-of-the-bell-curve

You certainly know how to spot the geniuses amongst[1] us.

[1] superlative of "among"

------
neotoy
More like: A new generation of humans who think in a way that a previous
generation of humans who are considered subjectively 'less intelligent'
consider to be 'super intelligent' is coming. Many lolz will be had as they
all perish due to their objective stupidity.

------
Beltiras
It's been known since antiquity that sometimes geniuses sire idiots. The
hyperfocus on genetics as the source of IQ is probably wrong. Let's remember
that we are well educated apes and if not for the education we would still be
looking at sticks and flint without realizing their combined value.

~~~
csallen
There's a very large gap between your first two sentences, especially since
it's quite common for there to be large variations in intelligence among
people raised/educated in similar environments.

~~~
Beltiras
I'm not maintaining there is _no_ genetic effect. I see plenty of indicators
around me pointing both ways. I think it's a mix of things. I _wished_ someone
would have pointed out Plato's writing to me when I was a kid. It would have
accelerated my intellectual development tremendously.

------
onetimeusename
I am curious about the motivations for this kind of research. It seems to me
that the assumption is that a super intelligent human being would be a saviour
to humanity of some sort. I really just see that humans are all in competition
with each other, which may be a good thing. So engineering a super human would
actually be a form of outsourcing. So first there is the assumption that the
superhuman would be better and second there is the problem of why people would
want to bring about their own outsourcing.

~~~
LLWM
In other words, "We should never have invented that damn cotton gin."

All evidence supports the idea that this kind of research will lead to
improved quality of life for practically everyone.

~~~
onetimeusename
What evidence is there that superhumans will lead to "improved quality of
life"? Even though you are just dispensing snark, I am glad you used this
example so I could show what I meant. "we should never have invented that damn
cotton gin" said the cotton pickers. "we should never have invented those damn
superhumans" said the humans. What is being outsourced is the entire spectrum
of human ability by what is essentially another species and not just machines
that we are fundamentally in control of or own.

~~~
LLWM
Good. I look forward to doing more interesting things with my additional free
time.

------
kingmanaz
As in Dungeons and Dragons, perhaps a distinction exists between man's wisdom
and intelligence. If so, a novel genius might profitably be tempered by a
common-sense practicality.

------
tempodox
1\. I'm skeptical that we can actually give a sensible definition of
“intelligence” / “smartness”.

2\. Even if we could do (1), I'm still skeptical we can inflate that
intentionally.

3\. Even if we can do (2), I'm _extremely_ skeptical the outcome is desirable,
for any definition of “desirable”, either from our own point of view or our
augmented offspring's.

Other than that, the idea seems like a perfect example of stone-cold
megalomania.

~~~
threatofrain
See how you might like this definition: intelligence, including artificial
intelligence (which just means intelligence resting on non-organic materials),
means general and arbitrary analogical ability. I think this definition fits
what people mean when they say "general mental ability", which I think is what
people mean to measure when they use IQ.

I think this is a really good definition of intelligence for communicating
what we want to talk about here. And personally I think it's fine to accept a
useful definition, even if it is not perfect, and even if its proliferation
means some people get unjustly damaged, insofar that the pragmatism of the
construct is adequately useful. From there, you have a community tool that can
undergo refinement or challenge.

It seems very plausible that we could raise whatever people are trying to
invoke when people say words like "intelligence", IQ, g, or arbitrary
analogical ability. I'm surprised you are extremely skeptical that we could
desirably raise intelligence. Even a noisy and brutish eugenic pressure in the
environment would push a population towards a direction, and I'm convinced
that this will happen with or without explicit policy.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Isn't that trading one number for one word? I've got to believe that
intelligence is multi-dimensional. Its silly to correlate IQ points with
genes. E.g. you can probably correlate genes with phone numbers too, but it
doesn't mean anything about the individual. Its got more to do with the system
that assigned them that IQ. E.g. taller people are perceived as smarter, for
no good reason.

~~~
threatofrain
I think the general suspicion is that if you go out and develop a
multidimensional test, it is quite reasonable to suspect that your test will
end up similar to IQ in performance.

Also, I don't think I'm trading one word for another. IQ is a measurement
construct that corresponds with a test. General mental ability is thought to
be the factor behind performance on an IQ test.

But I think you also wanted a more specific definition to general mental
ability, to which I offered "general and arbitrary analogical ability".
Speaking speculatively and tangentially, I think such an ability would allow a
computer to make causal inferences or write its own drivers for a novel
sensory apparatus.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
To compare intelligences requires a number or scale. 'arbitrary' isn't a
scale; that definition doesn't appear to be actionable?

------
dreamweapon
_" I have always thought that von Neumann's brain indicated that he was from
another species, an evolution beyond man."_

 _\--Nobel laureate Hans E. Bethe_

Yet we have no evidence that von Neumann's supergenius intelligence was due to
any specific genetic traits that he inherited. And even if some of these could
be genetically isolated, we have no basis at this point to believe that any of
these (as of yet unspecified) traits can be "engineered", singly or
collectively.

The article gets worse from there. Presumably the author is aware of the
Fallacy of Linear Extrapolation, yet he boldly goes on to say:

 _Given that there are many thousands of potential positive variants, the
implication is clear: If a human being could be engineered to have the
positive version of each causal variant, they might exhibit cognitive ability
which is roughly 100 standard deviations above average. This corresponds to
more than 1,000 IQ points._

This aside from the fact that no one really what (high) IQ is, or what an IQ
of 1,000 points (or even "100 standard deviations above average") could
possibly mean (or even be measured).

~~~
Houshalter
This is totally false. Intelligence is strongly genetic. Traits are very often
genetically additive. Although we won't be certain until do a huge survey of
genetics, all the author is saying is that it might be possible. And if it is,
then we do have the technology to "engineer" a child with the genes we want.

~~~
dreamweapon
_All the author is saying is that it might be possible._

No; he doesn't merely say that it "might be possible." He says that it _will
happen_. In fact he's so sure it will happen that it's basically inevitable.
So sure that he takes great pains to say so, in bold letters (hundreds of
pixels wide):

"Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming"

~~~
Houshalter
That's just the title, and that claim is much weaker than the "1,000 IQ" claim
I was referring to. The author is very clear this isn't a certainty.

~~~
dreamweapon
Which is to say: he makes an outlandish claim in the title, in order to get us
to read what he has to say; then meekly backpeddles away from that claim in
the body of the article.

~~~
Houshalter
Generally the editor writes the title. Regardless, the title isn't very
controversial; "superintelligence" isn't well defined and it's certainly
possible we could have humans with greater than genius IQ. It was the "1,000
IQ" claim that isn't certain, since it's just a simple extrapolation we don't
really know how all of those genes would interact.

------
Gravityloss
There was an article about a study which suggested that people with IQ above
140 tended to be lonely.

Raises ethical issues (among other reasons that obviously do).

~~~
gwern
The nice thing about proposing to manufacture lots of >140 people is that the
loneliness problem fixes itself. :)

------
thisjepisje
Reminds me of that Outer Limits episode.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sixth_Finger](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sixth_Finger)

------
rheide
The article assumes that if 1000 positive gene changes are responsible for
increasing intelligence, you'll get 1000 increases of intelligence. It's much,
much more likely that a lot of those gene changes overlap, meaning combined
changes won't affect the IQ any more than either/or changes would.

~~~
vixin
Possible to check this out. Society is polarizing and smart people are now
tending to associate with other smart people to an extent that did not occur
earlier. How are their progeny performing?

~~~
ap22213
Isn't it true that children regress toward the norm? For example, two very
tall people will more likely have a child that is shorter. Or, is that wrong?

~~~
bhouston
> Isn't it true that children regress toward the norm?

There isn't perfect heritability of all traits because they are influenced by
multiple genes. Two tall people likely have different genes that are making
them tall, and there are likely interactions happening with other genes in
their genome. When you get a child, they have some genes from each parent but
they also get lot of novel interactions between the genes of tallness and the
rest of their genome. This tends to reduce the heritability of traits that are
modulated by complex interacting gene networks.

But it isn't a regression to some imaginary norm, it just means that that
genes are not simply additive, they context dependent. But if you were to
isolate 100 tall people from the population and had them breed for
generations, and 100 short people and have them breed for generations, their
offsprings likely will continue different in height still, they will never
regress to the same "norm" because there are more tall genes or short genes in
their respective populations.

~~~
rjsw
Diet has changed a lot over a few recent generations, a child that should be a
bit shorter than its parents due to genetics may still be taller.

Other multivariate genes may provide a better example of regression.

------
wtbob
> In the former case, parents choosing between 10 or so zygotes could improve
> the IQ of their child by 15 or more IQ points.

Well, yes—if you kill the bottom 90-93% of people ranked by intelligence, then
the remainder are going to be quite smart.

Of course, that doesn't account for the possibility that there might be other
good things about the children the parents never see.

And in fact, if it's true that there's a strong correlation between high
intelligence and problems, then such an approach might lead to more problems
than it solves.

~~~
netcan
Artificial selection also appears to work in unusual ways. We don't really
understand the mechanics of it. Foxes were selectively bred in several
experiments (and for the fur trade) for tameness. Basically breeding only
foxes that don't bite or recoil from people.

The breed developed a whole range of dog like characteristic, behavioral and
morphological. They whine and bark (which neither wolves or wild foxes do).
They develop a diversity of coloration. I've even heard some had cute floppy
ears. Obviously there is a corollary to dog evolution, which we don't really
understand either.

Selecting for a trait or a family of traits in humans will probably have
unexpected side effects.

~~~
htns
Wolves not barking is a myth, at least if I believe my first google hit.

~~~
netcan
At the very least, dogs bark much more.

------
amjaeger
Reading the article I could only think of the past failures with eugenics,
like Nazi Germany, or even some stuff that happened in the US. I think we
should be wary of the consequences.

~~~
Houshalter
This is editing the genome to be smarter, not sterilizing stupid people.

------
flyrain
I hope somebody could improve dogs IQ, so she can talk to me or just
understand me better.

~~~
jqm
She probably will just use it to break out of the yard or get in the neighbors
trash though...

------
ap22213
Technically, wouldn't it be a strange thing for a Human (or any species) to
help perpetuate DNA within their own species that is not their own?

I can see raising a child that is not one's own - because it's enjoyable and
fulfilling to have a child. But, wouldn't the creation of 'Super-Anything'
Humans be one step closer to the Human hive mind?

~~~
ibisum
I think we don't acknowledge just how much of the Human Hive Mind we already
have. I mean, there are individual humans: and then there is humanity. In
between, many, many hives and collectives and corporations and aggregates, and
so on.

This, I believe, points to a 'higher, greater good' which is the species
itself. So to answer your question, no: its not strange at all to be
perpetuating human DNA in spite of ownership. Its the species which owns you,
not the other way around. None of us exist without others.

~~~
ap22213
If that's the case, wouldn't it also be useful to genetically engineer 'drone'
Humans who happily do all of the hard work?

~~~
ibisum
Indeed, that is what has been being done now, by humans, for tens of thousands
of years.

------
tokenadult
I somehow missed this thread at first. Reading through the comments here, I
see several comments that express the correct idea, but without the key word,
of "pleiotropy," that is a gene (or gene assemblage) having more than one
effect on phenotype. Some of the breeding examples mentioned in other comments
already provide the warning: if we select human gene assemblages to maximize
IQ scores (or something that can link even more directly to what we call
"intelligence" in the real world outside the testing room), we may or may not
produce healthy human beings, depending on what the pleiotropic effects of
those gene assemblages are. Right now we just don't know. An article in the
Nature Scitable collection explains what pleiotropy is in more detail.[1]

I see that the author of the article kindly submitted here has just joined HN
to join the discussion. I would respectfully suggest that the idea of "Crudely
speaking, IQs of order 1,000, if the scale were to continue to have meaning,"
should be amended with a discussion of how IQ scores of 1,000 can't possibly
exist, and surely wouldn't have meaning. That's because IQ scores are not
derived from an interval scale, but rather an ordinal scale.[2]

I read the story "Flowers for Algernon" when I was a kid too, and it was a
very moving story, and the author did a reasonably good job of researching
theories of psychology for his era. But his account of a mentally retarded
(today we would say "intellectually disabled") adult having some kind of
treatment that raised his IQ immensely is, at bottom, a made-up story, and the
author was actually more clever than many of his readers in suggesting what is
uncertain about what IQ scores mean. (He has some of his characters debate
with one another about that, as I noticed when I reread the story in the last
year.)

We know Richard Feynman's IQ as a historical matter.[3] Feynman's IQ of 125
was above average, of course, but not astoundingly high. There are several
Nobel Prize winners in physics with an IQ at a similar level, and plenty of
physicists with higher IQs who never achieve as much in physics research as a
Nobel laureate does. The uniform conclusion of ALL researchers who have looked
at the relationship between IQ scores and scientific research achievement is
that other personal qualities besides IQ matter a lot for research
breakthroughs.

One personal quality that is too little tapped by IQ testing is the habit of
mind called "rationality." Amazing, that does not correlate especially
strongly with IQ.[4] Improving "mindware," the ways that people think and how
they reality-check their own thinking, may have a more powerful effect for
human progress than merely increasing IQ. James R. Flynn, the dean of living
researchers on human intelligence, suggests some strategies for improving
thinking.[5] Being old enough to remember many gee-whiz promises about human
genetic investigations that didn't pan out, for the moment I will bet on
Flynn's approach providing more long-term benefit for humankind than the
approach of looking for genome-wide associations with IQ.[6]

[1] [http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/pleiotropy-one-
gene...](http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/pleiotropy-one-gene-can-
affect-multiple-traits-569)

[2] See the references collected at

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_measurement#Ordinal_s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_measurement#Ordinal_scale)

or

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_classification#Variance_in_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_classification#Variance_in_individual_IQ_classification)

and note the diversity of cited authors, who all agree that IQ scores are
ordinal rather than interval numbers.

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_classification#IQ_classific...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_classification#IQ_classification_and_genius)

[4]
[http://www.yalebooks.com/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=978030016462...](http://www.yalebooks.com/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300164626)

[5]
[http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/PressRelease/pressReleaseId-10...](http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/PressRelease/pressReleaseId-104556.html)

[6] "Most Reported Genetic Associations with General Intelligence Are Probably
False Positives"

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3498585/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3498585/)

"Understanding the Genetics of Intelligence: Can Height Help? Can Corn Oil?"

[http://apsychoserver.psych.arizona.edu/JJBAReprints/PSYC621/...](http://apsychoserver.psych.arizona.edu/JJBAReprints/PSYC621/Johnson%20Current%20Directions%20Psych%20Science%202010%20\(G%20and%20E%20in%20IQ\).pdf)

~~~
gwern
> We know Richard Feynman's IQ as a historical matter.[3] Feynman's IQ of 125
> was above average, of course, but not astoundingly high.

This IQ figure is deeply dubious, as I have pointed out several times on HN
and elsewhere. Oddly, your WP link doesn't include the context on that score
which is in Feynman's own article:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#Education](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#Education)

> for the moment I will bet on Flynn's approach providing more long-term
> benefit for humankind than the approach of looking for genome-wide
> associations with IQ.[6]

So you want to bet on a improvements of a trait which hasn't even been nailed
down clearly (much less shown to be changeable at all) rather than a
straightforward approach which after incorporating that methodological
critique (problem: early papers had insufficient alpha control and threw up
mostly false positives; solution: genome-wide multiple correction + sample
sizes 100x larger) has already had several hits? I think you may want to read
up on these topics a little more...

> The uniform conclusion of ALL researchers who have looked at the
> relationship between IQ scores and scientific research achievement is that
> other personal qualities besides IQ matter a lot for research breakthroughs.

Yes, but if you want to select for Openness and Conscientiousness, you're
going to need fairly similar sample sizes and GWAS procedures: personality
traits seem to be highly polygenic too.

> Improving "mindware," the ways that people think and how they reality-check
> their own thinking, may have a more powerful effect for human progress than
> merely increasing IQ.

Uh huh. Call me when any of Stanovich's work moves beyond exploratory towards
showing real-world benefits. I've read his books and the results are still
tentative. In the mean time, GWAS/IQ research is happening _now_.

------
coldcode
They would simply be averaged out by people elected to public office, a place
where a super-intelligent human would never be welcomed.

~~~
socialist_coder
Only because the general public is so... average (pretty dumb).

If the average person had a 10 or 15 point higher IQ, I think people would put
a higher value on intelligence in their elected officials.

I think that the world would look a lot different (better) if the average
intelligence was raised by this much. So many things would change. A dawn of a
new era.

~~~
peterfirefly
Israel sounds like it would be a natural experiment for that hypothesis.

I hope you are right but it doesn't quite look that way.

------
madaxe_again
Interesting article, but I feel it misses the simple fact that any individual
with an IQ of 1000 is likely to be "insane" by any modern measure of the world
- they certainly wouldn't have a world-view that has much in common with their
"fellow men". As it stands, many of those who have exceptionally high IQs or
high "intelligence" struggle to exist in a world that isn't geared for them.
These "hyper-intelligent" individuals, should they ever exist, would likely be
stoned by their fellow men, or would choose to be the other variety of stoned
rather than suffer the stupid of the world.

~~~
protonfish
I think this effect is significant even with IQs much lower than "super-
intelligence". Socially, people organize into a hierarchy of authority. A
significant rule of this structure is that should should never be smarter than
your superiors - finding a better solution than your "betters" is akin to
showing them to be wrong and is confused with a display of dominance. Persons
of inferior social standing but superior intelligence are treated as a threat.

If there was a genetic component to "super-intelligence" then we would observe
it. How many of those great minds listed had parents or children that also
made the list: zero. Also, would any of these (suspiciously all European)
super-geniuses have been as successful if there were born in a small backwater
village? There are probably millions of people with Einstein-level
intelligence around the world, but living in environments that are hardly
conducive to the expression of their genius.

The breakthrough that we need to realize super-intelligence is not Eugenic or
academic, it is social. The only way to allow the best minds in the world to
blossom in potential is:

1\. Grant access to intellectual resources and opportunities to everyone.

2\. Stop the authoritarian practice of crushing dissent.

~~~
Tossrock
There absolutely are not millions of people with Einstein level intelligence
around the world. That would imply that the probability of having Einstein
level intelligence is on the order of one in a thousand, or as likely as
having Down syndrome. This is manifestly not the case.

~~~
nobodysfool
Supposedly 'Albert Einstein' had an IQ of around 160. My father's IQ was
tested to be around 200. Yet you wouldn't know who the hell my father was even
if I told you his name. It would place him as 1 in 4 billion according to
these charts...
[http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/iqtable.aspx](http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/iqtable.aspx)

However, Einstein would be 1 in 11,000. If the chart is to be believed, then
people with an IQ of 160 or above would be about 655,000 (according to the
current world population).

In any case, it doesn't matter so much anymore. My father is nearly broke,
sick, and in poor health right now and lives with his parents. He was somewhat
successful as a business man, but not overly so. He was well known within his
community, and he certainly could do anything he wanted. He was a scuba diver,
a pilot, an engineer, he speaks three languages, can play the piano and
saxophone, he can program a computer and rebuild engines. Having super
intelligent people will not make that much difference in the world, except in
the cases where those people lead countries. Until we elect leaders who have
such high intelligence, we won't see society change much at all. Intelligence
does not equal money, and it doesn't equal power. It just means you can figure
out things faster than others. With computers, an average person can solve
complex mathematical problems faster than the highest IQ people could 100
years ago. IQ is far less relevant in today's world.

In any case, even if these high IQ people were elected, what happens when one
of them has a stroke and all of a sudden their IQ is only half what it was
(500)? Should we have a vote of no confidence and shun them from society? This
just ends up as eugenics all over again. If you don't know what I am talking
about, read about it here. [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/science/haunted-
files-the-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/science/haunted-files-the-
eugenics-record-office-recreates-a-dark-time-in-a-laboratorys-past.html?_r=0)

~~~
farresito
From my experience, IQ results are very inflated. Your father was probably
very bright, but an IQ of 200 is very very high, so high that it is unlikely
that he was that smart. An IQ of 200 means he is one of the brightest in the
world, and I've read here and there about people being tested on IQ of around
220. Statistically it's not possible.

~~~
nobodysfool
I believe the word you mean is improbable. Nothing is impossible. And you may
be using the later versions of the test. I'm not saying he was the smartest in
the world, in fact, it may have been a flaw of the test. It was when the tests
were being first developed. Regardless of what his intelligence was (it's far
lower now thanks to a stroke he had a few years back) I'm just saying that it
doesn't mean as much as it did.

~~~
gwern
> It was when the tests were being first developed.

So it was a ratio test, not a modern deviation test? (As makes sense since no
accepted deviation test goes up to 200 in the first place...) A 200 would be
nothing exceptional: it just meant he was substantially better than his year-
bracket - a 4 year old acting like an 8 year old, a 5yo like 10yo, etc. Not
that he was Einstein.

------
electrograv
_> Each genetic variant slightly increases or decreases cognitive ability.
Because it is determined by many small additive effects, cognitive ability is
normally distributed, following the familiar bell-shaped curve, with more
people in the middle than in the tails._

How do we know these genes have an additive effect on IQ?

The causal relationship asserted by this quote is very strange. They claim:
_Because_ these effects are additive, IQ is normal distributed. What...? IQ is
a test. It's normal distributed, like most tests are.

They're referring to the central limit theorem here, I assume[1], which not a
bad insight. However it should be obvious that this normal distribution
phenomenon arises out of such tests being scored additively from a number of
relatively independent questions (whose answers can be thought of as
independent random variables of unknown distribution).

In any case, I don't see how they can justify a causal link (in either
direction) between some alleged additive effect of genes and the IQ test
itself.

Personally, I'm mostly interested in this claim on additive intelligence
genes, since I'm not an expert on this. It would be fascinating and exciting
if there were additive "intelligence genes". However, as someone working on
artificial neural network research as a hobby, I'm highly skeptical of this.
It seems much more likely that human intelligence is a delicate balance of
many interacting factors relating to the architecture and "algorithms" of the
brain.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_limit_theorem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_limit_theorem)

~~~
bhouston
>> Each genetic variant slightly increases or decreases cognitive ability.
Because it is determined by many small additive effects, cognitive ability is
normally distributed, following the familiar bell-shaped curve, with more
people in the middle than in the tails.

> How do we know these genes have an additive effect on IQ?

I came to post on the same topic. Some gene effects are additive but those are
the simple ones and there isn't that many of them. In something complex like a
human brain, there are going to be tons of interactions between genes, so that
maybe genes A+B makes someone smarter and C+D also make someone smarter, but
the combo A+C makes someone actually less smart. The interactions are likely
to be insanely complex -- eventually solvable but it will be a while.

To use a computer metaphor, the optimization landscape is not smooth and it
doesn't only have a single optimal peak, it is highly complex with lots of
local hills (which are caused by the interactions.)

> The breeding of domesticated plants and animals has changed some populations
> by as much as 30 standard deviations. Broiler chickens, for example, have
> increased in size more than four times since 1957. A similar approach could
> be applied to human intelligence, leading to IQs greater than 1,000.

This chicken metaphor is very wrong in that that was achieved via artificial
selection, not genetic engineering. Artificial selection can make directed
fast movement through an optimization landscape, but it does this without
actually trying to figure out the interactions at the gene level, rather it
looks as the results and selectively breads for those. When you do this to
human it is called eugenics, and, to put it mildly, it likely isn't going to
come back into fashion:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics)

~~~
readerrrr
_When you do this to human it is called eugenics, and, to put it mildly, it
likely isn 't going to come back into fashion._

Surprisingly we do it all the time, on animals, and we call it breeding. It is
very successful and if applied to humans could produce real geniuses without
any new tech or research in a handful of generations. Too bad the word has
such negative association.

~~~
ZenoArrow
"Surprisingly we do it all the time, on animals, and we call it breeding. It
is very successful"

Breeding is successful in some sense, but certainly not without its issues.
For example, by breeding pedigree dogs we've left them with a number of
genetic defects that are hard to remove due to the reduced gene pool, e.g.
Dalmatian deafness, Bulldog respiration, King Charles Spaniel syringomyelia,
etc...

Addressing the article, I find the idea of quantifiable intelligence to be one
of the dumbest ideas we ever came up with. What does an IQ point mean, really?
From my understanding, testing it basically boils down to using a specific
subset of symbolic puzzles. Intelligence can be quantified numerically in the
same way love can be quantified numerically, i.e. not at all, without losing
the essence of what you're looking for.

Also, intelligence by itself is not a goal in its own right, it's the purpose
to which it's applied that matters. If super intelligent people exist, what
would we have them do? The same things we do but faster? No thanks.

Instead of wasting our time trying to group ourselves into categories, we
should be looking to bring out the best of the talents we find in the people
around us. That seems like a better goal than chasing a 1000 IQ person.

~~~
readerrrr
_Breeding is successful in some sense, but certainly not without its issues.
For example, by breeding pedigree dogs we 've left them with a number of
genetic defects that are hard to remove due to the reduced gene pool, e.g.
Dalmatian deafness, Bulldog respiration, King Charles Spaniel syringomyelia,
etc..._

I agree the research would have to be gradual and aware of those issues. I
doubt dog breeders really care for those.

 _Addressing the article, I find the idea of quantifiable intelligence to be
one of the dumbest ideas we ever came up with. What does an IQ point mean,
really? From my understanding, testing it basically boils down to using a
specific subset of symbolic puzzles. Intelligence can be quantified
numerically in the same way love can be quantified numerically, i.e. not at
all, without losing the essence of what you 're looking for._

IQ can be measured, there are many tests that do so. More time you spend
checking more accurate you can get. Not infinitely accurately but good enough.

 _Also, intelligence by itself is not a goal in its own right, it 's the
purpose to which it's applied that matters. If super intelligent people exist,
what would we have them do? The same things we do but faster? No thanks._

That makes little sense. Speed is not a requirement for _new_ research and
discovery. Original though is. That is what we should strive for.

 _Instead of wasting our time trying to group ourselves into categories, we
should be looking to bring out the best of the talents we find in the people
around us. That seems like a better goal than chasing a 1000 IQ person._

Eugenics could do exactly that.

~~~
ZenoArrow
"I agree the research would have to be gradual and aware of those issues. I
doubt dog breeders really care for those."

Are you suggesting dog breeders don't care about dogs? From what I've seen
they tend to be quite fond of them. The issue is we breed dogs for different
traits, with the issues I mentioned before the dogs might've been bred for
their looks, but other dogs that were at some point bred for work still have
issues... Golden Retrievers are high risk for developing cancer, German
Shepherds are high risk for hip dysplasia, Dachshunds are high risk for back
problems, etc... It's not that dog breeders want to give dogs issues, it's a
byproduct of selective breeding, as defects that do creep in are harder to
remove.

"That makes little sense. Speed is not a requirement for new research and
discovery. Original though is. That is what we should strive for."

The tests we are talking about do not measure creativity in any meaningful
sense.

"Eugenics could do exactly that."

How could eugenics do exactly that? I'm talking about bringing out the talents
of people around you, i.e. they already exist.

