From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Sun Jan 19 2003 - 02:47:19 MST
On Sat, Jan 18, 2003 at 09:43:32PM -0500, Gary Miller wrote:
> This is a somewhat radical proposal for accelerating the singularity,
> but I've not heard it discussed before, so here goes.
Hmm, this seem to be very similiar to a lot of old pulp sf stories. Tom
Strong, anyone?
Maybe the reason it has not been discussed before (besides extraneous
complications like public distaste for eugenics and cloning done by tiny
self-appointed elites) is that it is based on a faulty chain of
correlations: high IQ => genes for high IQ => a clone will be
potentially high IQ => good upbringing makes this potentiality real =>
several really smart people help accelerate the singularity.
Imagine that each implication has a correlation of 0.8 (which is likely
far higher for several of these than it is in reality). Then the total
correlation would be just 0.4 - far less, although still non-zero. This
is the same effect that makes the contribution of genetic IQ to the
inheritance of social class so minor compared to other inheritance
factors (like growing up in the right social networks etc).
The most unlikely assumptions are the later ones. Especially the
assumption that having around a small number of people that have got a
great upbringing (note that this can be awfully hard too - what is the
right upbringing for a child in the first place? If one of them wants to
become a fireman, priest or luddite, should it be promoted or not?) and
are likely to be smart will accelerate progress. We already have
*millions* of smart people with fairly good upbringings, plenty of those
the children of top IQ researchers and scholars. 20 clones will be a
drop in the ocean. While breakthroughs are made by individual minds,
they are so rare that they would not correlate very strongly with any
particular group (after all, how many more Nobel laureates per capita
are in Mensa than outside?).
If you want to accelerate the singularity, isn't it more cost-efficient
to find ways of bringing extra stimulation to the already existing kids
that have good potential but too little stimulation? Maybe Sesame Street
2.0 is more powerful than the cloning vat.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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