(I agree that building smarter humans is a potentially workable point of intervention. This needs a champion to at least outline the argument, but actually making this happen will be much harder.)
It seems fairly clear to me that we will have the ability to “build smarter humans” within the next few decades, just because there are so many different possible research paths that could get us to that goal, all of which look promising.
There’s starting to be some good research done right now on which genes correlate with intelligence. It looks like a very complicated subject, with thousands of genes contributing; nonetheless, =that would be enough to make it possible to do pre-implantation genetic screening to select “smarter” babies with current day technology, and it doesn’t put us that far from actually genetically engineering fertilized eggs before implantation, or possibly even doing genetic therapies to adults (although, of course, that’s inherently dodgier, and is likely to have a smaller effect).
Other likely paths to IA include:
-We’re making a lot of progress on brain-computer interfaces right now, of all types.
-Brain stimulation also seems to have a lot of potential; it was already shown to improve people’s ability to learn math in school in published research.
-Nootropic drugs also may some potential, although we aren’t really throwing a lot of research in that direction right now. It is worth mentioning, though, that one possible outcome to that research on genes correlated with intelligence might be to figure out what proteins those genes code for and figure out drugs that have the same effect.
-Looking at the more cybernetic side, a scientist has recently managed to create an implantable chip that could connect with the brain of a rat and both store memories and give them back to the mouse directly, basically an artificial hippocampus. http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/513681/memory-implants/
-The sudden focus on brain research and modeling in the US and the UK is also likely to have significant impacts
-There’s other, more futuristic possible technologies here as well (nanotech, computer exocortex, ect). Not as likely to happen in the time frame we’re talking about, though.
Anyway, unless GAI comes much sooner then I expect it to, I would expect that some of the things on that list are likely to happen before GAI. Many of them we’re already quite close to, and there’s enough different paths to get to enhanced human intelligence that I put a low probability on all of them being dead ends. I think there’s a very good chance that we’ll develop some kind of way to increase human intelligence first, before any kind of true GAI becomes possible, especially if we put more effort into research in that direction.
The real question, I think, is how much of intelligence boost any of that that going to give us, and if that’s going to be enough to make FAI problems easier to solve, and I’m not sure if that’s answerable at this point.
It seems fairly clear to me that we will have the ability to “build smarter humans” within the next few decades, just because there are so many different possible research paths that could get us to that goal, all of which look promising.
There’s starting to be some good research done right now on which genes correlate with intelligence. It looks like a very complicated subject, with thousands of genes contributing; nonetheless, =that would be enough to make it possible to do pre-implantation genetic screening to select “smarter” babies with current day technology, and it doesn’t put us that far from actually genetically engineering fertilized eggs before implantation, or possibly even doing genetic therapies to adults (although, of course, that’s inherently dodgier, and is likely to have a smaller effect).
Other likely paths to IA include:
-We’re making a lot of progress on brain-computer interfaces right now, of all types.
-Brain stimulation also seems to have a lot of potential; it was already shown to improve people’s ability to learn math in school in published research.
-Nootropic drugs also may some potential, although we aren’t really throwing a lot of research in that direction right now. It is worth mentioning, though, that one possible outcome to that research on genes correlated with intelligence might be to figure out what proteins those genes code for and figure out drugs that have the same effect.
-Looking at the more cybernetic side, a scientist has recently managed to create an implantable chip that could connect with the brain of a rat and both store memories and give them back to the mouse directly, basically an artificial hippocampus. http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/513681/memory-implants/
-The sudden focus on brain research and modeling in the US and the UK is also likely to have significant impacts
-There’s other, more futuristic possible technologies here as well (nanotech, computer exocortex, ect). Not as likely to happen in the time frame we’re talking about, though.
Anyway, unless GAI comes much sooner then I expect it to, I would expect that some of the things on that list are likely to happen before GAI. Many of them we’re already quite close to, and there’s enough different paths to get to enhanced human intelligence that I put a low probability on all of them being dead ends. I think there’s a very good chance that we’ll develop some kind of way to increase human intelligence first, before any kind of true GAI becomes possible, especially if we put more effort into research in that direction.
The real question, I think, is how much of intelligence boost any of that that going to give us, and if that’s going to be enough to make FAI problems easier to solve, and I’m not sure if that’s answerable at this point.