
Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/34/adaptation/super_intelligent-humans-are-coming-rp
======
JonoBB
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. I
always had the feeling that he was seeing things 5 steps ahead of everyone
else, and had such an extremely deep insight into every day things. I think it
just became too much for him to handle.

~~~
nibs
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...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-
news/12122545/Intelligent-people-are-genetically-predisposed-to-be-healthier-
experts-find.html) [2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Disintegration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Disintegration)

~~~
ultimape
"high functioning" kind of autism is a misnomer - even if you aren't the kind
that bangs their head on the floor / avoided being non-verbal, life can be
quite challenging.

I agree that it isn't necessarily a net negative, but the success of an
individual on the spectrum seems highly conditional on life circumstances.

The thing is, genetics for autism also seem to produce people with adhd
(reciently rolled into the spectrum) and generally coincide with decreased
ability in executive function - leading to the absent minded professor
syndrome. It also has a high prevalence of sensory processing disorder which
can lead to a lot of issues with dealing with day-to-day life.

Even in cases where people with ASD happen to be of above average
intelligence, it doesn't necessarily lead to success. I score 99% percentile
in almost all academic areas, but I can't even feed myself right now. I'm
functionally retarded when it comes to interacting with people half the time
and the high-stress that comes from normal every day things means I might as
well be agoraphobic.

Under the right conditions I have no doubt that I can flourish. I'm actively
engaged in getting my life back on track (grew up in poverty, diagnosed late
in life) but there's a reason that suicide rates and general unemployment
levels for people on the spectrum are astronomical compared to the general
population.

~~~
nibs
I agree with this. I would be ADHD if my parents sent me to school and/or
believed in those diagnoses. I have yet to meet a gifted child male that does
not qualify as ADHD. It is interesting to hear what you have mastered vs.
struggled with. I can't say that my anecdotal evidence suggests that people
always get a net benefit, just that in the right environment, people with
autism can have complete, fulfilling and engaging lives. Unfortunately it
seems to take a lot of will power and brute force intelligence to make it so,
and not everyone is successful.

------
dzink
Here are a few patterns I've seen in studies or surfaced:

1\. Intelligence is an ability to observe, gather feedback based on past
observations, and see patterns at a speed much faster than others at a lower
general level. The growth in insight can be exponential, but it also means you
start thinking at levels of abstraction and patterns that are layers above
people at other levels. You struggle to communicate.

2\. High Intelligence is not correlated with high moral or other views - at
its base, it means speed in some directions an individual is prone to have. If
they find a career path that allows them to speed in that direction, they
thrive, if not, you see a lot of psychological challenges over time.

3\. Socially, the higher your IQ, the more likely you are to skip steps in
explaining your thoughts and to be misunderstood because your thinking might
be several levels of abstraction above the people your're talking to. People
at the 150IQ general level are rarely happy working with or friending people
below 120. Given a propensity to specialize it a field rarely touched by
others - one can get quite lonely in their thoughts and lose the social skills
needed to develop normal friendships. Unless you are lucky enough to be
surrounded by peers, you may be very unhappy. That unhappiness can shift to
negative, downright trolling behaviors for some people.

4\. Given the above, a lot of potential is lost. For every Einstein, there are
likely several hiding in corners wondering what is wrong with them.

I've been thinking about and working on prototypes for a platform that would
be helpful to unite people with niche and advanced interests, so they can
collaborate freely. Would love to connect with others interested in the topic.
(Edit: typos)

~~~
dzink
Sources: 1\. On Intelligence: [http://www.amazon.com/On-Intelligence-Jeff-
Hawkins/dp/080507...](http://www.amazon.com/On-Intelligence-Jeff-
Hawkins/dp/0805078533) 2\. [https://www.quora.com/Whats-it-like-to-
have-a-150-IQ-Is-life...](https://www.quora.com/Whats-it-like-to-
have-a-150-IQ-Is-life-easier) 3\. Some article shared in the MENSA group years
ago I'd have to dig in to find.

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xyzzy123
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.

~~~
loup-vaillant
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.

~~~
xyzzy123
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.

------
douche
Screw 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.

~~~
vijayr
_Right now we 've got assortative mating going on at a scale relatively
unprecedented in history._

What exactly does this mean? Is there a place where I can learn more about it?

~~~
davidiach
I recommend reading Coming Apart by Charles Murray, where assortative mating
is discussed extensively.

There are also some interesting articles you might want to read:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/upshot/marriages-of-
power-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/upshot/marriages-of-power-
couples-reinforce-income-
inequality.html?hpw&rref=upshot&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-
region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/upshot/rise-in-
marriages-o...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/upshot/rise-in-marriages-of-
equals-and-in-division-by-class.html?_r=0)

[http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21595972-how-
sex...](http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21595972-how-sexual-
equality-increases-gap-between-rich-and-poor-households-sex-brains-and)

------
dheavy
Some of the assumptions in this article are very ambiguous and makes the
reading quite disturbing. I don't grasp the author's notions of IQ. Maybe it's
me misunderstanding the writing, but IQ is more of a normative scale than an
infinite scale. You don't push your IQ to 1000. It's not an anime energy
level. This makes no sense.

Then there are things like "Right now we've got assortative mating going on at
a scale relatively unprecedented in history" (assumption or data-based
fact?)...

~~~
louprado
With only 7 billion people on the planet the theoretical IQ maximum is around
190. You can calculate this value from the CDF (cumulative distribution
function) of a normal probability distribution having a mean of 100 and std of
15 (the definition of the IQ graph). Unfortunately the integral of normal pdf
is the error function which is difficult to solve with high precision.

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noir_lord
Allowing 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).

------
austerity
> This means that there must be at least thousands of IQ alleles to account
> for the actual variation seen in the general population.

Or that IQ is only governed by genes to a very small extent in which case the
rest of the argument goes out of the window.

~~~
compactmani
You're right that the author (unless I missed it) didn't say what proportion
of variance in IQ is explained by additive genetic effects (narrow sense
heritability) . I think a quick search would likely answer that.

------
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.

------
Severian
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.

~~~
jstanley
> It won't do much good if you are born super-smart but are trapped in poverty
> or circumstances which limit your potential.

I'd argue the opposite. If you're in a tougher situation, there's a lot more
for you to gain by applying your intelligence.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
Poverty causes much more than can be helped. Bad schools that are falling
apart, a lack of opportunity, and the effects of long term stress on the brain
are all things that will affect any person regardless of intelligence.

------
aswanson
Tldr? Title seems clickbaity and I don't want to reward that.

~~~
gardano
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"?

~~~
soared
Sometimes I want to click on an enticing clickbait article from buzzfeed, but
can't let myself because its buzzfeed and a listicle.

------
AnimalMuppet
Several comments have mentioned that high intelligence can result in a very
lonely, isolated, and depressing existence, as you find that you can
communicate with very few people, and how sometimes very bright people wind up
either anti-social or suicidal.

I wonder about the implications of this for super-intelligent AI...

------
snowmizuh
Übermensch!

Haven't we heard this before?

~~~
tempodox
And it hasn't lost its allure one bit.

------
Gratsby
Can confirm. Daughter turns 13 in 2 weeks. Pretty soon she's going to know
everything.

------
pippy
I would gladly fork out the cost of a university tuition for CRISPR therapy to
give my children the edge. But many would be adverse to this, probably to the
extent of being a same sex marriage/abortion level of debate.

------
davidiach
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.

~~~
dsr_
You would also need some way of re-inducing plasticity in the brain's
connectome. This seems less likely to be feasible after adulthood.

Also, IQ is a lousy measurement scale. Ten points means a lot more to someone
with an 85 or 95 IQ than to someone with 120.

~~~
xyzzy123
Sci-fi story plot twist: it's possible, but your personality completely
changes and you lose your earlier memories. You don't get actually any
smarter, but you have a brief period in your life where you learn super fast.

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quantum_state
interesting 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!

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danarlow
And why exactly should we assume the "additivity of small effects" assumption
holds far from the center of the current g distribution?? Stack up enough of
these variants and you're into unknown territory, including possibly inviable
embryos.

------
kgabis
I just hope that they watched enough Planet of the Apes movies to not test it
on monkeys first.

------
Nutmog
“the case for substantial genetic influence on g is stronger than for any
other human characteristic.”

How does that fit with the popular notion that intelligence is independent of
race? Isn't the definition of race essentially just different genetic
background?

------
ryandev
if you haven't seen it, the film Gattaca covers this very well
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/)

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andrewclunn
Unintended side effects are the risk here. You can't legally 'test' this out,
so it would have to be trial and error by parents. Wouldn't want to be an
early adopter here.

------
tronje
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.

~~~
pilsetnieks
There'd still be at least a generation before the kids are up to speed. Even
if they're of the "finish HS by 12, BS by 13, PhD by 16" types, they still
have to accumulate a large amount of knowledge and practice, to actively
participate in the science.

~~~
chii
And I think science is not a zero sum game.

~~~
zardo
There's only so much science to go around, so don't go hogging all the
discoveries.

------
terda12
Unrelated to the article but the design of that website is so nice

------
tokenadult
From the article: ". . . if combined in an ideal fashion, could lead to
individuals with intelligence that is qualitatively higher than has ever
existed on Earth: Crudely speaking, IQs of order 1,000, if the scale were to
continue to have meaning."

That's an amazingly ignorant comment. First of all, the better evidence is
behind the idea that currently observed high human IQ, when the "g" factor is
factored into consideration, consists mostly just of luckily lacking
deficiencies in function that other human individuals have. In other words,
the centuries-long factor-analytic approach mostly suggests that high-IQ
individuals luckily lack "general stupidity," but still are subject to hard
limits on human cognition (Mackintosh, _IQ and Human Intelligence_ second
edition 2011, pages 155-156).

And the hard limits on human cognition are intractable, and actually
illustrated by the article kindly submitted here. Psychologist Keith R.
Stanovich points out in his book _What Intelligence Tests Miss_ that even very
high-IQ individuals (studied in studies of members of high-IQ societies) are
still subject to most human cognitive biases, and they can be MORE subject to
delusional beliefs than members of the general public because they can make up
elaborate rationalizations for anything they choose to believe, including a
belief in superintelligence.

I doubt the statements in this article also because there is a long line of
research that goes back to before when the article author was born on
selective breeding of mice and rats for high intelligence in their behavioral
context. (One kind of test of intelligence given to rats and mice is running
through mazes to find food.) Since before the author was born, there have been
purebred strains of "maze-bright" and "maze-dull" rats that have been tested
by psychologists. Now that there are gene technology methods in animal
research, there are transgenic mice with knocked-out genes and added genes,
and the author significantly fails to mention any experimentation in animal
models that shows that his speculation is likely to become true.

The Wikipedia article on IQ classification adequately cites references to
demonstrate that the IQ scale is strictly ordinal, so indeed a notion of "IQ
1000" is meaningless.

If you'd like to read a more thoughful article on genetic influences on human
IQ, by a researcher who has been closer to the research for longer and who has
published in better journals than the author whose essay was kindly submitted
here, see Wendy Johnson's article "Understanding the Genetics of Intelligence:
Can Height Help? Can Corn Oil?"[1] which has an excellent review of decades of
research on genetics and on human intelligence.

[1]
[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Understanding+the+Genet...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Understanding+the+Genetics+of+Intelligence+Can+Height+Help%3F+Can+Corn+Oil)

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dustingetz
I dont think we need smarter humans, i think we need more normal-intelligence
humans who like working hard.

~~~
id
Yes, we definitely need more mindless wage slaves and worker drones who _like_
being used and exploited.

~~~
arca_vorago
"You should just feel lucky to have a job at all, who cares that they aren't
paying you in level with the amount of service/product you produce for
them..."

I hate this embrace your servitude mentality.

------
thecrumb
Have you watched CNN lately? I don't think so.

------
tempodox
As if intelligence per se were some kind of virtue. All it does is give you an
edge over the less intelligent, like a boatload of money gives you an edge
over poorer people. The utility lies in the difference. If you lift everyone's
level simultaneously, nothing changes. When all is said and done, human
stupidity will still be infinite.

