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Thinking about the social and political implications of this in the long run. Any society or segment of any society that isn't producing average 120 IQ babies w

Thinking about the social and political implications of this in the long run. Any society or segment of any society that isn't producing average 120 IQ babies with superior sensory perception, physical strength, dexterity, and so forth, is going to turn itself into a permanent human underclass. Eugenics is here to stay this time.

evan_ 5y ago
> Any society or segment of any society that isn't producing average 120 IQ babies with superior sensory perception, physical strength, dexterity, and so forth Where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.
- sweetbitter 5y ago
  Haha, Lake Wobegon?
unsupp0rted 5y ago
That particular underclass problem seems unlikely, relative to how much any 120 IQ human pales in comparison to any synthetic AGI or even domain-expert AI. The real underclass would be humans vs. machines, which would 10x, 100x or 1000x IQ, perception, strength, dexterity... pretty much any measure. By the time we can make 120 IQ humans consistently, we'll be able to make 120 IQ machines consistently. And a couple years or perhaps hours after that the 120 IQ machines will be able to make 240 IQ machines and so on.
ajconway 5y ago
The world is massively unfair as it is. Would anyone even notice already "privileged" societies becoming a little bit more privileged? Who knows, maybe our IQ 120 overlords will be kind to make the tech available for everyone else.
- legalcorrection 5y ago
  A 120 average IQ population would run circles around a 100 average IQ population, even starting from a much lower position. Of course, there's still the question of whether society is organized such that people of exceptional talent rise to power, and whether they have the incentive to do great things. My main concern isn't the tech being inaccessible to poorer people or countries. International intellectual property protection has always been precarious, and I guarantee that e.g. India won't just accept having a dumber population because "oh well, an American company owns the patents and we can't afford mass licensing." Rather, Western societies have strong anti-eugenic impulses because of 1) the Christian legacy, 2) the popular fixation on WW2 atrocities, and 3) a political taboo against acknowledging population-level differences in mental (and to a lesser extent, even physical) attributes. I could see China being much more willing to embrace eugenic technology on a shorter timescale than the United States. And that could be the death blow to the US.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    A 120 average IQ population would be normalized to a 100 average IQ population.
    - legalcorrection 5y ago
      Is this a joke? Yes, by definition an IQ test is normalized to 100 for the population it's targeted for. But that doesn't mean that you can't compare intelligence across different populations, by not doing that normalization.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        Average IQ will always be 100, but 100 today is not the same as 100 50 years ago. Renormalization is about 3 points per decade, so you have to take that into account when you compare IQ results across longer time spans. So a person that would have scored '100' on an IQ test 50 years ago would be expected to score about 85 on a test administered today. Note that I'm not a fan of collapsing everything about human intelligence to a single number, but if you are going to use that number then you at least should be aware of how it is defined and how it develops over time.
ch4s3 5y ago
We don't have a very good understanding of the genetics of many of these traits. Intelligence is especially thorny, involves numerous genes, and is probably only about half hereditable which is actually reasonably high. We're likely to get a bunch of tall people, until everyone remembers they die younger due to cardiovascular strain. We'll probably wipe out most single gene hereditable diseases, which will be great. We're also somewhat likely to see fads around eye color in "designer" babies. We may also get people selecting for a single gene that make for great endurance athletes. Anything much beyond that is science fiction in the near future. The knock on effects of tinkering with more than a handful of well understood genes is going to be really dangerous. Quick Edit* There are around 1000 genes that have some bearing on intelligence. The 22 most impactful together account for 5% of variation.
dekhn 5y ago
This is sort of naive. Even the chinese have backed off from their plans on doing this, both before and after the Jiankyu debacle. https://singularityhub.com/2013/03/19/chinas-bgi-to-sequence-2200-geniuses-in-search-for-smart-genes/ https://singularityhub.com/2013/03/19/chinas-bgi-to-sequence... https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/08/20/166465/is-it-possible-to-make-people-smarter/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/08/20/166465/is-it-pos... By the way, I spent about 20 years of my life pursuing this goal, and I've concluded that most cultures aren't that keen on superintelligent babies right now.
Flatcircle 5y ago
IQ is overrated. If IQ mattered as much as people think, then all the jeopardy champions would be millionaires. Some of the dumbest people are willing to go up to strangers and ask them to buy something they don't need. Intelligence can get in the way more than people think. Just gotta be above the disability level. Your emotional, energetic, environmental, and cultural traits will do the rest.
- legalcorrection 5y ago
  Yes, I agree. You should substitute a mix of cognitive attributes for my original post's simplistic focus on IQ.
postalrat 5y ago
Seems more efficient to clone 200 or so super geniuses and stick them in a lab.
krageon 5y ago
If anything, it is liberating that this can (potentially) be achieved using editing instead of partner selection and stimulating child birth among "desirable" couples. Using editing, such things should be within reach for everyone. What's not to love?

evan_ 5y ago

> Any society or segment of any society that isn't producing average 120 IQ babies with superior sensory perception, physical strength, dexterity, and so forth Where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.

sweetbitter 5y ago
Haha, Lake Wobegon?

unsupp0rted 5y ago

That particular underclass problem seems unlikely, relative to how much any 120 IQ human pales in comparison to any synthetic AGI or even domain-expert AI. The real underclass would be humans vs. machines, which would 10x, 100x or 1000x IQ, perception, strength, dexterity... pretty much any measure. By the time we can make 120 IQ humans consistently, we'll be able to make 120 IQ machines consistently. And a couple years or perhaps hours after that the 120 IQ machines will be able to make 240 IQ machines and so on.

ajconway 5y ago

The world is massively unfair as it is. Would anyone even notice already "privileged" societies becoming a little bit more privileged? Who knows, maybe our IQ 120 overlords will be kind to make the tech available for everyone else.

legalcorrection 5y ago
A 120 average IQ population would run circles around a 100 average IQ population, even starting from a much lower position. Of course, there's still the question of whether society is organized such that people of exceptional talent rise to power, and whether they have the incentive to do great things. My main concern isn't the tech being inaccessible to poorer people or countries. International intellectual property protection has always been precarious, and I guarantee that e.g. India won't just accept having a dumber population because "oh well, an American company owns the patents and we can't afford mass licensing." Rather, Western societies have strong anti-eugenic impulses because of 1) the Christian legacy, 2) the popular fixation on WW2 atrocities, and 3) a political taboo against acknowledging population-level differences in mental (and to a lesser extent, even physical) attributes. I could see China being much more willing to embrace eugenic technology on a shorter timescale than the United States. And that could be the death blow to the US.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  A 120 average IQ population would be normalized to a 100 average IQ population.
  - legalcorrection 5y ago
    Is this a joke? Yes, by definition an IQ test is normalized to 100 for the population it's targeted for. But that doesn't mean that you can't compare intelligence across different populations, by not doing that normalization.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Average IQ will always be 100, but 100 today is not the same as 100 50 years ago. Renormalization is about 3 points per decade, so you have to take that into account when you compare IQ results across longer time spans. So a person that would have scored '100' on an IQ test 50 years ago would be expected to score about 85 on a test administered today. Note that I'm not a fan of collapsing everything about human intelligence to a single number, but if you are going to use that number then you at least should be aware of how it is defined and how it develops over time.

ch4s3 5y ago

We don't have a very good understanding of the genetics of many of these traits. Intelligence is especially thorny, involves numerous genes, and is probably only about half hereditable which is actually reasonably high. We're likely to get a bunch of tall people, until everyone remembers they die younger due to cardiovascular strain. We'll probably wipe out most single gene hereditable diseases, which will be great. We're also somewhat likely to see fads around eye color in "designer" babies. We may also get people selecting for a single gene that make for great endurance athletes. Anything much beyond that is science fiction in the near future. The knock on effects of tinkering with more than a handful of well understood genes is going to be really dangerous. Quick Edit* There are around 1000 genes that have some bearing on intelligence. The 22 most impactful together account for 5% of variation.

dekhn 5y ago

This is sort of naive. Even the chinese have backed off from their plans on doing this, both before and after the Jiankyu debacle. https://singularityhub.com/2013/03/19/chinas-bgi-to-sequence-2200-geniuses-in-search-for-smart-genes/ https://singularityhub.com/2013/03/19/chinas-bgi-to-sequence... https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/08/20/166465/is-it-possible-to-make-people-smarter/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/08/20/166465/is-it-pos... By the way, I spent about 20 years of my life pursuing this goal, and I've concluded that most cultures aren't that keen on superintelligent babies right now.

Flatcircle 5y ago

IQ is overrated. If IQ mattered as much as people think, then all the jeopardy champions would be millionaires. Some of the dumbest people are willing to go up to strangers and ask them to buy something they don't need. Intelligence can get in the way more than people think. Just gotta be above the disability level. Your emotional, energetic, environmental, and cultural traits will do the rest.

legalcorrection 5y ago
Yes, I agree. You should substitute a mix of cognitive attributes for my original post's simplistic focus on IQ.

postalrat 5y ago

Seems more efficient to clone 200 or so super geniuses and stick them in a lab.

krageon 5y ago

If anything, it is liberating that this can (potentially) be achieved using editing instead of partner selection and stimulating child birth among "desirable" couples. Using editing, such things should be within reach for everyone. What's not to love?