That would be weird. Even if we assumed that human-like intelligence is the smartest possible architecture, there are many ways to improve the performance withi

That would be weird. Even if we assumed that human-like intelligence is the smartest possible architecture, there are many ways to improve the performance within essentially the same architecture. Imagine that we scan a human brain, atom by atom, and create a computer simulation of it. (If you believe that brain alone is not enough, let's simulate the whole body.) We would get, essentially, a human living in a simulated world. Suppose we simulate one of the smartest ones. What if we increase the speed of simulation? Human brain runs at cca 100 Hz, because the signal is translated from electric to chemical and back to electric at the end of each neuron. So either we simulate this entire process, only faster, or if possible, we make the signals between simulated neurons run much faster by cheating at simulation. Imagine having a human, only 1000× faster. Now speed is not the same as intelligence. A 1000× faster fool would still be a fool. But a smart 1000× faster simulated human could solve in 3 seconds a problem that a normal human could solve in 1 hour. Or solve in 8 hours a problem that a normal human could solve in 1 year. So we already got something that normal people couldn't compete against, intellectually. We could optimize the metabolism of the simulated human. Because he only exists in the computer memory, it is not a problem to e.g. regularly scan his entire body and remove all cancer cells. Similarly, remove all physical damage, including aging. So it would be a (1000× faster) immortal human with perfect health. In a month, he could learn as much as a normal human during entire life... but then he could still continue learning, while the normal human would die, and his descendants would have to start learning from scratch. And instead of one person we could simulate thousand people. Each of them could become an expert on a different area, and they could help each other. The simulation as a whole could study and research many things in parallel. So, from outside, we would see a huge machine that in one month can understand almost all human knowledge, and then proceed further in all directions. I suppose this qualifies as "smarter than human". (And this still assumes that human-like architecture is optimal, which in my opinion is probably not true.)