Comment on Modest Superintelligences

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 09:47:02 GMT

No, I’m not, but I’m not nearly von Neumann’s genius level either, and I wasn’t educated and indoctrinated from birth for that purpose.

And there certainly are people who are that single-minded, we’ll “just” have to figure out which parts of nature or nurture cause it. Even drugs slightly more advanced that the stuff used now for ADHD might be useful.

Even with “normal” geniuses, I’d bet a group would gain a lot of focus even from “mundane” changes like not having to worry about office politics, finding grants, or assembling your children’s college fund, or going to college and finding a promising career for younger geniuses. I’m not saying this kind of changes are easier to achieve in practice, just that they’re very low-tech; you don’t need lots of research to try them, just a big (monetary and political) budget.

Discuss