Human intelligence augmentation is feasible over a scale of decades to generations, given iterated polygenic embryo selection.
I don’t see any feasible way that gene editing or ‘mind uploading’ could work within the next few decades. Gene editing for intelligence seems unfeasible because human intelligence is a massively polygenic trait, influenced by thousands to tens of thousands of quantitative trait loci. Gene editing can fix major mutations, to nudge IQ back up to normal levels, but we don’t know of any single genes that can boost IQ above the normal range. And ‘mind uploading’ would require extremely fine-grained brain scanning that we simply don’t have now.
Bottom line is, human intelligence augmentation would happen way too slowly to be able to compete with ASI development.
If we want safe AI, we have to slow AI development. There’s no other way.
Gene editing can fix major mutations, to nudge IQ back up to normal levels, but we don’t know of any single genes that can boost IQ above the normal range
This is not true. We know of enough IQ variants TODAY to raise it by about 30 points in embryos (and probably much less in adults). But we could fix that by simply collecting more data from people who have already been genotyped.
None of them individually have a huge effect, but that doesn’t matter much. It just means you need to perform more edits.
If we want safe AI, we have to slow AI development.
I don’t see any feasible way that gene editing or ‘mind uploading’ could work within the next few decades. Gene editing for intelligence seems unfeasible because human intelligence is a massively polygenic trait, influenced by thousands to tens of thousands of quantitative trait loci.
I think the authors in the post referenced above agree with this premise and still consider human intelligence augmentation via polygenic editing to be feasible within the next few decades! I think their technical claims hold up, so personally I’d be very excited to see MIRI pivot towards supporting their general direction. I’d be interested to hear your opinions on their post.
Human intelligence augmentation is feasible over a scale of decades to generations, given iterated polygenic embryo selection.
I don’t see any feasible way that gene editing or ‘mind uploading’ could work within the next few decades. Gene editing for intelligence seems unfeasible because human intelligence is a massively polygenic trait, influenced by thousands to tens of thousands of quantitative trait loci. Gene editing can fix major mutations, to nudge IQ back up to normal levels, but we don’t know of any single genes that can boost IQ above the normal range. And ‘mind uploading’ would require extremely fine-grained brain scanning that we simply don’t have now.
Bottom line is, human intelligence augmentation would happen way too slowly to be able to compete with ASI development.
If we want safe AI, we have to slow AI development. There’s no other way.
This is not true. We know of enough IQ variants TODAY to raise it by about 30 points in embryos (and probably much less in adults). But we could fix that by simply collecting more data from people who have already been genotyped.
None of them individually have a huge effect, but that doesn’t matter much. It just means you need to perform more edits.
I agree this would help a lot.
EDIT: added a graph
I think the authors in the post referenced above agree with this premise and still consider human intelligence augmentation via polygenic editing to be feasible within the next few decades! I think their technical claims hold up, so personally I’d be very excited to see MIRI pivot towards supporting their general direction. I’d be interested to hear your opinions on their post.