aboe4 wrote:this is interesting J11, although I agree it is difficult to follow the nuances of the study from 2014 that you've shared. Can you explain the left and right y-axis units as well as the x-axis in that chart?
Dear aboe4,
A very warm welcome from us all!
I agree with you, this a very thought provoking thread! And although I cannot help you with your immediate question, I might be able to help you with some of the features of the website. So here is a link to the Primer, which has been written by one of the forum's practitioner. If you require more information in how to use the site, please have a read of the how-to guide. In the meantime, it would be great to get to know you, so please don't hesitate to share your story on the 'Our Stories' board.
Warm regards
Flo
aboe4, I am honored that you chose to mention the Cognitive Singularity on your inaugural post to the APOE4 forum.
Regarding your comment about the x-axis and y-axis I am not sure what you are referring to. Might you cite a specific post, in order that I could understand the reference that you mentioned?
This is the biggest idea that I have ever encountered.
It is very BIG.
My impression is that most people have no mechanism to integrate this new concept into their perception of the world, and have instead chosen to ignore it. Yet, through time Cognitive Uplift will increasingly dominate social and economic attention as a pervasive shift in cognitive ability eventually becomes too self-apparent to overlook.
We have embarked onto a journey to a super-high intelligence future that is beyond our ability to accurately predict and will be beyond our ability to control. The obvious cognitive horizon that we are now moving towards is a single humanoid species devoid of subgroup differences in cognitive ability. Until this time, humans have had minimal ability to genetically engineer cognitive ability. In the context of naturalistic human cognitive evolution, 1 IQ point enhancement typically required 1-10 thousand years. Current technology can already remove barriers that span upwards of 40,000 years within a single generation. We need to think at the level of a human scale consciousness and not at the level of a tribal mentality.
The basic concept of the Cognitive Singularity is exceptionally simple and in parallel completely unrefutable.
There are a very large number of genetic variants of very small effect sizes that define human intelligence ( on the order of ~10,000).
In analogy to flipping coins, people with typical intelligence would receive ~5,000 heads (0 SD); at the extreme of human intelligence people would receive 5,500 heads (7SD); at the extreme of un-intelligence people might receive 4,500 heads (- 7SD). No one has ever received all 10,000 heads (100 SD).
There is no reasonable basis to challenge the above logic. What is also of interest is that all people carry the genetic potential to have much more intelligence off-spring simply by selecting the optimal combinations of existing genotypes.The inescapable conclusion is that the future is bright.
It is of course greatly disappointing that no one had been able to think about this until very recently. None of our species could figure this out? Of course, this undermines the extreme importance of genetically engineering smarter people. What else might all of us be unable to perceive? This one idea of Cognitive Singularity has a near unlimited economic value. Unleashing extreme genius intelligence on a planetary scale will create near limitless wealth. What other ideas might extreme geniuses uncover? This is the most exciting adventure in human history.
You need to not be too optimistic about it though. One worry is that combining humans according to their genotypes might produce smart people, but what else might go wrong? Maybe combinations are not good for everything, maybe diseases will result from IQ-centered enhancement directions. There might be many disadvantages and that is something to be cautious about.
DeterminedActivist, Cognitive Uplift will certainly be a very complex process in which a range of unexpected outcomes likely will occur. We can only do the best that we can to look forward to a world that we can barely imagine. I agree that a great deal could probably go wrong and likely will. Basing human evolution on considerations of individual self-interests does not seem an overly promising starting point for a sustainable future for humanity.
One of the more memorable comments that a medical worker made to us while we cared for our loved one with at the time moderate dementia was how lucky we were. I was not then entirely sure about how we could then be described as fortunate, as the bottle of anti-psychotics on the shelf nominally for our loved one was in fact an emergency supply for us to cope with the very difficult period of moderate dementing illness. Yet, in reflection, I can clearly see the blessings that dementing illness offers. Many of the people that have not this blessing live lives that are apparently completely morally adrift. They have no particular moral center and remarkably are in essence the hollow consumers or otherwise that they seem.
It is true that IQ enhancement could be accompanied by many other problems. Notably, there has already been an autism epidemic in Silicon Valley as high intelligence somewhat autistic mates have produced highly autistic children. Tragedy does not require high technology; more often tragedies occur when scientific knowledge is absent or only partial.
Autism spectrum disorder does have linkages to high intelligence. Without deep knowledge of the variants related to human cognitive ability and which might overlap with autism, even natural reproduction can produce unexpected results. The use of high selection pressure in embryos might greatly amplify the risk of a range of illnesses. However, the current GWAS research will possibly allow people to increase intelligence in their offspring, while decreasing the risk of a range of illnesses.
Intense embyro selection would presumably also reduce the genetic variation of humans. Genetic diversity provides humanity a range of genetically programmed possible solutions to the many problems that we face. What would happen if humanity had been reduced to a near clonal population? How could we create creative solutions if everyone were "Yes people" (even if they were super smart)?
On the other hand doing nothing is not an entirely appealing choice either. Research has already demonstrated that human genetic cognitive potential is in decline. The researchers were concerned about how humanity could cope if this were to continue long-term. One does not need to refer to ancient history to find instances in which marginally lower human cognitive ability lead to serious violations of human rights. A smarter future will offer humanity more of the good and less of the not so good.
Well, if as I suspect, rich an powerful would not conspire to put branch into bicycle wheels for economy as whole, which prevents high IQ and low IQ people from having more children, then we would have less dysgenics. Low IQ people are supported via welfare state and other means (it is a big problem in Eastern Europe, and we are not that bad in that regard compared to places like Germany). However, I think that there is an invisible force that will level playing field. As jobs become more complex and cognitively-demanding, the need for brain power will increase and hence will exclude lots of average or even 1SD folks from holding a job. Not having a source of income for a male means he struggles to attract females and hence might not reproduce. The advancing automation and cognitive demand is the reason for a bigger and bigger split between rich and middle class. More and more goods flow to the top naturally, there is no conspiracy to hold people back, it is nature itself that is holding more and more back.
I am not particularly intelligent and I am already struggling to get top jobs in high-frequency trading, etc. because the questions they ask to solve I am not able to. It is a proxy for an IQ test. I think that industries have caught up to reality of intelligence research and they now are trying to circumvent illegality of IQ tests by proxies. It is quite scary what will happen in 10 years in my field - the bar keeps rising more and more and I might be left behind ... and hence filtered by nature.
DeterminedActivist, thank you for re-joining the conversation!
While 1500 IQ humanoids might seem somewhat off topic for an Alzheimer forum, it really isn't.
Intelligence is a centrally important (and endlessly recurring) part of the background of our discussions on forum.
Indeed, now that tau inhibitors appear to be a highly effective treatment approach to apparent cognitive
impairment, a more psychometrically nuanced understanding of Alzheimer's will need to arise. The new
frontier in Alzheimer's cognitive testing will not be with tests such as the MMSE, instead highly sensitive
intelligence tests will probably be required to help detect changes in cognitive ability well before clear
cognitive changes are present.
Futurists are predicting that over the next decade or two that technological change will exponentially intensify.
The question is not if a Singularity will occur, instead which kind? Artificial intelligence or human intelligence? The approaching artificial intelligence Singularity has not provoked any noticeable resistance. This is somewhat surprising considering that such a Singularity would essentially displace humanity as the pinnacle of intelligence in the universe. However, with the Cognitive Singularity, there seems to be quite a bit of friction to increasing human intelligence. It is important that the consequences of this friction be made clear: We are creating a future in which humans will be increasingly marginalized. The true dividing line of the future might not be rich versus middle class: instead Human versus Robot.
I understand the problem that you mention of feeling overwhelmed by competitive environment that you are in. As I noted above, the competition that will emerge over the next 10 years will not only be human. The arrival of yet more powerful artificial intelligence algorithms will greatly stress those of all cognitive ability levels. Ironically the dysgenic fertility trend is probably being driven by the differential recognition by those of higher cognitive ability that the artificial intelligence world of the future is not one that would highly value human cognitive inputs.
DNA is perfect software. (or the best we know of yet in the universe)
DNA is error correction.
DNA is data storage that withstands the passage of millennia.
DNA takes care of itself.
What we have done with technology thus far in a few decades does give us a god complex, but it is not without substantial merit. It makes the fictional works of a movie like Prometheus and its associated backstory and roots potentially not fiction.
I would suggest all readers of this thread that give it more than an entertaining skeleton to a good piece of fiction a read through the following books:
The reason for the last one is that I want any reader of this thread to think like J11, and then apply the ethnical approach to cheating, stealing, winning to a country that has no problem openly practicing eugenics on a global scale with their 1 child policy that creates a net male population to go beyond the borders of its own country to find mates.
Read about the experiments they've already done (that you know about) with CRISPR and human embryos. The truth is that the ethics policies of China are allowing them to rapidly get ahead of Europe and the US as we are stuck in an ethics fog.
Even further, this has the philosophical musings of Nietzsche's superman all over it.
J11 is 100% on point and although the timing may be off, it is going to happen either through Ai or CRISPR most likely in the lifetime of many of the readers on this forum.
Indeed it will happen. It is a matter of "if we don't do it, someone else will". Might as well take the wins. And China with its lack of political correctness will dominate. That is why elite gave up on USA after 9/11, and moved manufacturing to China along with many other jobs. It is where future is and it is obvious China are willing to do what it takes to dominate. It is quite scary. Europe and the West are falling behind with their morality and petty issues while the bohemoth is asserting itself which was planned and ready for last 3 decades. Intelligence does not correlate with morality - in fact I have friends who rationalised away working at places like Palantir or hedge funds because it allowed them to get ahead. Intelligent people are not less selfish, I would argue they recognise that they are better than most humans and get whatever they can. Hence the growing gap between rich and middle class and disappearance of any pretense of caring about citizens.
But this is nothing new - it was always like that. At the center of it all is debt. Collateral of citizens to the wealthy was never higher and am afraid they'd rather get rid of 90% of population than write off the debt. It will only get worse and China will lead the way.
dfmcapecope, thank you for entering the conversation.
I greatly appreciate your comments and welcome an opportunity to further discuss some of the many points of view related to this topic.
Your comment that we are now within the event horizon of the Cognitive Singularity helped me to forge the neural connection
that this will manifest in our reality. Putting words onto paper can crystallize what before was only a vague speculation. Often people can become lost in oceans of hypotheticals, none of which are even plausible. IQ uplift is more than plausible; it has already arrived. I believe that I cited a peer reviewed paper earlier in this thread that mentioned that ~3 IQ uplift using only existing embryo selection is currently technologically and broadly economically feasible in developed nations.
I suspect that many are unaware that we have already entered the era of cognitive enhancement. We cannot ignore the most important technology that our species has ever encountered. It is very important that the genetic enhancement of intelligence become part of mainstream conversation.
Not only has the media been silent, yet for some reason so too has science fiction not prepared us. The first cognitively enhanced children might have been born last April (or possibly earlier). Science fiction should prepare our imaginations for the worlds that we will live in some day. It shouldn't tell us what happened yesterday. However, here we are and an exponential technology growth wave has now formed into a ripple: Don't ignore this ripple until it becomes an unstoppable wave! The 3 point enhancement could all too soon change into a 30 point enhancement with known causal variants with more than 200 points already found in haplotypes and another thousand points that is within reach at current GWAS scale.
This is the most exciting moment in the history of the universe. A race to super-intelligence is now underway. Current best bet would be for AI Singularity to take first place. dfmcapecope, thank you for your book suggestions particularly The Singularity is Near; that is a great work that can help people to embrace a psychology of exponential disruption. If people can align with reality as it now exists and will exist, then perhaps they can harness the positives and benefit from what is now unfolding. Denials and delusions isn't an optimal solution.
Nevertheless, cognitive uplift might happen sooner than one might imagine. As a guess China has already rolled out genetic selection for IQ; Western connotations of the word "eugenics" simply do not seem to apply in China. It might not be apparent to Westerners that this has happened for many years. Giving others a head start on enhancement cannot possibly be a wise strategy.
Once enhancement begins there will be a runaway positive feedback loop leading us to the Cognitive Singularity.
The current state of genetic gamesmanship is very unstable. A nation that reneged on the assumed enhancement moratorium while others complied would achieve an overwhelming advantage. Given this, it does not seem reasonable to me that a moratorium can hold. Once any nation has clearly embarked on the road to cognitive upgrade others would almost by necessity have to scramble to catch up.
Hopefully we can create our own growth wave on this thread and discuss the many many interesting implications of the cognitive enhancement of our species.
DeterminedActivist, this is such an enormously exciting moment in human history.
A few years back an international conference was held in Washington was held that was intended to impose a global moratorium on gene editing: this was later shown to be unsuccessful.
Embryo selection has now been reported as another reproductive technology that can achieve intelligence enhancement. Considering that embryo selection is a very widely applied technology and that the actual thought process that would lead to choosing one embryo over another is highly complex and opaque, it does not seem plausible that embryo selection for intelligence could not occur or indeed is not currently occurring. It is such a magical time, as we witness the intelligence of our species move upwards.
We will be all too aware of such an uplift well before it will be reported in the media and elsewhere, just as the psychometric decline of the last decade or two is all too apparent to even a casual observer. Even when we can't quite verbalize the changes in cognitive ability that we see all around us, we can still recognize that reality is shifting. Once people appreciate how controllable the psychometric environment can be through genetic technologies and understand first hand how beneficial an upward shift in intelligence can be, there likely will be a wish to push forward to ever higher levels of average cognitive ability.
Intelligence is the very essence of vitality. Indeed, some with great insight into the extreme of high cognitive ability describe typical human consciousness as merely sleep walking. We are very fortunate that we are being pulled away from a future of continued somnolence and toward a future of full mental presence.
