It might be helpful to greatly raise the intelligence of a biological creature that had a very different evolutionary path than we did, such as the octopus, to give us a bit more insight into the general relationship between intelligence and friendliness.
Tool-using birds are smart enough that there might be useful stuff there. How you do anything useful with that and an octopus is beyond me, but no more so than doing something useful with mammal genes and an octopus.
It might be helpful to greatly raise the intelligence of a biological creature that had a very different evolutionary path than we did, such as the octopus, to give us a bit more insight into the general relationship between intelligence and friendliness.
Any suggestions on how to do this?
Aggressive breeding program?
If we went transgenic, that would A) be unlikely to work, and B) interfere with the very effect we are trying to test.
For (B) not if we took genes from non-mammals.
Octopi are already the pinnacle of non-mammalian intelligence, so far as I know. What else would you bring in?
Tool-using birds are smart enough that there might be useful stuff there. How you do anything useful with that and an octopus is beyond me, but no more so than doing something useful with mammal genes and an octopus.
Physically stretch and merge brains using steam cells.