5 ms·

> take human intelligence to another pinnacle I see no indication that current human intelligence is at anything close to a historical pinnacle. Human knowledg

by kibwen 5mo ago

> take human intelligence to another pinnacle I see no indication that current human intelligence is at anything close to a historical pinnacle. Human knowledge, yes, but intelligence? No. Collectively, we're dumb and trending dumber, and the tendency towards lazy thoughtlessness which AI engenders will accelerate that trend.

ninjagoo 5mo ago
> I see no indication that current human intelligence is at anything close to a historical pinnacle. Human knowledge, yes, but intelligence? No. Collectively, we're dumb and trending dumber Just mathematically speaking, collectively we're at peak population levels, so the total collective intelligence (sum of all individual human intelligences) is likely at peak as well, even accounting for individual dumbing down? Also, I think we (non-scientists) might be overestimating the average historical intelligence - see Flynn Effect [1] - perhaps because of a bias in our perception of the past levels based on who published books and thoughts - basically more intelligent members of our species. > and the tendency towards lazy thoughtlessness which AI engenders May I suggest these historical references [2][3][4][5][6][7] as a counterpoint to AI driving lazy thoughtlessness, which rather seems to be innate to humans as a group. ---------------- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect [2] Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 1.20 — 5th c. BCE Greece. “So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand.” [3] Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1.2 — 4th c. BCE Greece. https://kairos.technorhetoric.net/stasis/2017/honeycutt/aristotle/rhet1-2.html https://kairos.technorhetoric.net/stasis/2017/honeycutt/aris.... Aristotle treats public persuasion as necessary partly because ordinary audiences cannot easily follow complex chains of reasoning. He says rhetoric addresses deliberative matters before people “who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument, or follow a long chain of reasoning.” [4] Plato, Republic, Book V — 4th c. BCE Greece. https://topostext.org/work/768 https://topostext.org/work/768. Plato distinguishes philosophers from the many “lovers of sights and sounds,” who enjoy appearances but do not apprehend deeper truth. The text says their thought is “incapable” of grasping the underlying form or nature of beauty, and that few attain that deeper vision. [5] Confucius, Analects, Book 2 — 5th c. BCE China. https://www.chinastory.cn/ywdbk/english/v1/detail/20190722/1012700000042741563764362373032081_1.html https://www.chinastory.cn/ywdbk/english/v1/detail/20190722/1.... "Learning without thought is pointless, Thought without learning is dangerous". [6] Buddhist tradition, Dhammapada, Appamāda-vagga. https://suttacentral.net/dhp21-32/en/sujato https://suttacentral.net/dhp21-32/en/sujato. Dhammapada contrasts heedfulness with heedlessness, treating heedlessness as a central human failing. In one translation: “Heedfulness is the state free of death; heedlessness is the state of death. The heedful do not die, while the heedless are like the dead.” [7] Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, “Idols of the Mind” — 1620. https://history.hanover.edu/texts/bacon/novorg.html https://history.hanover.edu/texts/bacon/novorg.html. Bacon argues that the “Idols of the Tribe” are rooted in human nature itself, and that human understanding distorts reality like a false mirror.
- djeastm 5mo ago
  In a mathematical model of collective intelligence I think we need to also include a "productive use" factor. The total brain power of our species might be higher than in the past based on a summation, but how much per-capita intelligence is being utilized for productive/adaptive ends versus being being distracted from such ends? What's our distraction rate offset?
  - ninjagoo 5mo ago
    > In a mathematical model of collective intelligence I think we need to also include a "productive use" factor. The total brain power of our species might be higher than in the past based on a summation, but how much per-capita intelligence is being utilized for productive/adaptive ends versus being being distracted from such ends? What's our distraction rate offset? Excellent question. Global GDP estimates going back to 1 CE are here [1][2]. I would argue that GDP is a good proxy for an estimate of the summation of per-capita intelligence being used for "productive" ends, by definition. But, the global average GDP per capita is [3] with a similar hockey-stick curve, and it is unclear whether the per-capita intelligence used for "productive" ends has also been increasing similarly, because the confounding factor is the effect of tools as force-multipliers (impact on productivity). The Flynn Effect is the strongest indicator that yes, average intelligence has been rising as measured in certain populations where cultural differences do not wreck the applicability of IQ tests. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-gdp-over-the-long-run https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-gdp-over-the-long-... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20260525015042/https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-gdp-over-the-long-run https://web.archive.org/web/20260525015042/https://ourworldi... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-average-gdp-per-capita-over-the-long-run https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-average-gdp-per-ca...
- muttonette 5mo ago
  Is a room with 300 morons and 1 genius more intelligent than a room with 10 morons and 1 genius? In my model, there is negative intelligence, so the 300 morons would actually be less intelligent. We do have more stupidity degrees of freedom, that’s for sure. That is, the domain of human stupidity is greatly expanded. Smart people can be stupid in an ever increasing number of ways. So a very bright person 100 years ago might appear very stupid if they were time machined into the now.
ranger_danger 5mo ago
Are you implying that all the scientific achievements of the last hundred years don't count somehow?
- BigTTYGothGF 5mo ago
  Did you perhaps miss this part: > Human knowledge, yes, but intelligence? of the post you responded to?
  - k1musab1 5mo ago
    Proving the point, if anything.
- nullsanity 5mo ago
  [dead]
rrgok 5mo ago
What do you mean by intelligence? And by your definition of it, can intelligence be improved intentionally or it happens as it happens like for evolution? If it happens by intention then why we have not pushed it at its maximium yet?
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- kibwen 5mo ago
  Let's start by using strength as an analogy. A human is strong when they develop their physical body to its potential. That means developing muscles, cardio, lung capacity, flexibility, etc. A human is weak when they fail to develop their physical body to its potential (we don't actually care how strong humans are compared to each other, only to themselves). We can then judge human populations based on, say, the strength of the median person. Intelligence is the same but for mental faculties. A human is intelligent when they develop their critical thinking, memory, focus, logical reasoning, etc. A human is unintelligent when they fail to develop these things to their personal potential. And when I look around me I see a culture of inustrial-strength distraction that has robbed people of their ability to focus, I see encyclopedias in everyone's pockets that have robbed them of any incentive to remember, I see a society of comfortable complacency that has shielded them from any consequence of poor logical reasoning, and with LLMs I see a mass surrender of the need to exercise critical thinking in exchange for the warm embrace of thoughtlessness. There's no reason that things need to be this way. The human hardware hasn't fundamentally changed in 100,000 years, and we have so many more resources today that it's easy to imagine that we could all be, collectively, more intelligent than ever if we could somehow inspire people to care. Sadly, we don't seem to be able to.
  - SoftTalker 5mo ago
    Human nature is also hasn't fundamentally changed in 100,000 years. We'll mostly take the easy path, if it is made available to us.
layer8 5mo ago
“Pinnacle” just means “highest point” here. They are saying that AI might take human intelligence to a higher point than was previously reached. That’s debatable, of course, but isn’t what you seem to be arguing against.
- satvikpendem 5mo ago
  They know what pinnacle means, their point is intelligence is not knowledge. But I find that rather nitpicky as it's clear the top level comment just used one as a synonym for the other, not actually caring about the difference.
  - layer8 5mo ago
    They wrote “I see no indication that current human intelligence is at anything close to a historical pinnacle.” That can only be the case if the highest point of human intelligence was in the past and they are opining that the current level of human intelligence isn’t anywhere close to that past high point. However, that assessment wouldn’t contradict what OP wrote, so it’s more likely that they take “pinnacle” to mean something else.
pepperoni_pizza 5mo ago
Maybe peak human intelligence is like peak oil - it only goes down from here. Like renewables were on track to bring us peak oil, maybe AI will bring us peak human intelligence.
oytis 5mo ago
Yeah, we peaked somewhere near the end of XIX century IMO. Before the transition to mass society.
- micromacrofoot 5mo ago
  we have more intelligent people than ever, but this also means we have more stupid people than ever
gls2ro 5mo ago
I assume you are here talking about political choices, social media influences, life style choices and so on. While all those are true they are not reflecting the level of intelligence of people: intelligent people take personal stupid decisions because while intelligence is a function of let's say the more "abstract brain", decisions are emotionally driven and influenced by the "ancient, threat focused, pleasure driven brain". Here is a quick way to think about this: some intelligent people are obease, some others don't exercise, and others don't take their health seriously while also working on the most amazing problems we ever solved. You know what's the biggest paradox here: they all have the capacity to understand fully the impact of their lifestyle on their health but still making a life style change is hard due to not being driven by knowledge and logic.
cubefox 5mo ago
> I see no indication that current human intelligence is at anything close to a historical pinnacle. Human knowledge, yes, but intelligence? No. Collectively, we're dumb and trending dumber We are at a peak in absolute terms, though the decline is coming quickly: https://x.com/jonatanpallesen/status/2034755779501105321 https://x.com/jonatanpallesen/status/2034755779501105321 But in relative terms intelligence has indeed been declining for a long time: https://x.com/jonatanpallesen/status/2034912319256330729 https://x.com/jonatanpallesen/status/2034912319256330729
quaintdev 5mo ago
Whenever this topic comes up I am reminded of the black and white picture of all the scientist of 19th century together. Each individual in that photo had contributed something to human knowledge. It feels like in 19th century we believed in our scientists and advancing our knowledge. I feel today celebrities are given more importance than our scientists. The best minds of our century are focused on extracting value from rest of the population.
- anal_reactor 5mo ago
  The era of scientists being celebrities is done for the simple reason that it's not possible for a single human to advance our knowledge. Breakthrough papers are published by large groups who build on knowledge created by even larger groups. Also, science used to directly correlate with improvements in life standards. Nowadays we see advancements in science (AI, psychology) used to actively reduce the standard of life.
- EpiMath 5mo ago
  Perhaps you are thinking of the 1927 Solvay Conference? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solvay_conference_1927.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solvay_conference_1927.jp...
- mr_mitm 5mo ago
  You probably mean the Solvay conference. I just wanted to append this link to your comment: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6e/Solvay_conference_1927.jpg/1920px-Solvay_conference_1927.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6e/So... It really is a remarkable picture, but I'd like to note that it's all physicists, not scientists in general. It was the golden era of physics.
  - darkwater 5mo ago
    I know it's a typo but it's Solvay, not Solay.
  - quaintdev 5mo ago
    Yes this is the one.
carlosjobim 5mo ago
Neither intelligence nor knowledge, if you mean us average people. But that shouldn't be any surprise. We're already at more than a hundred years of deliberate dumbing down of the population through schooling and mass media. These effects are exponential through generations.
beej71 5mo ago
If we train AI on human works and humans only do what the AI says, we're at a maximum.
satvikpendem 5mo ago
When was the historical pinnacle in your opinion?

by kibwen 5mo ago

ninjagoo 5mo ago

> I see no indication that current human intelligence is at anything close to a historical pinnacle. Human knowledge, yes, but intelligence? No. Collectively, we're dumb and trending dumber Just mathematically speaking, collectively we're at peak population levels, so the total collective intelligence (sum of all individual human intelligences) is likely at peak as well, even accounting for individual dumbing down? Also, I think we (non-scientists) might be overestimating the average historical intelligence - see Flynn Effect [1] - perhaps because of a bias in our perception of the past levels based on who published books and thoughts - basically more intelligent members of our species. > and the tendency towards lazy thoughtlessness which AI engenders May I suggest these historical references [2][3][4][5][6][7] as a counterpoint to AI driving lazy thoughtlessness, which rather seems to be innate to humans as a group. ---------------- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect [2] Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 1.20 — 5th c. BCE Greece. “So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand.” [3] Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1.2 — 4th c. BCE Greece. https://kairos.technorhetoric.net/stasis/2017/honeycutt/aristotle/rhet1-2.html https://kairos.technorhetoric.net/stasis/2017/honeycutt/aris.... Aristotle treats public persuasion as necessary partly because ordinary audiences cannot easily follow complex chains of reasoning. He says rhetoric addresses deliberative matters before people “who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument, or follow a long chain of reasoning.” [4] Plato, Republic, Book V — 4th c. BCE Greece. https://topostext.org/work/768 https://topostext.org/work/768. Plato distinguishes philosophers from the many “lovers of sights and sounds,” who enjoy appearances but do not apprehend deeper truth. The text says their thought is “incapable” of grasping the underlying form or nature of beauty, and that few attain that deeper vision. [5] Confucius, Analects, Book 2 — 5th c. BCE China. https://www.chinastory.cn/ywdbk/english/v1/detail/20190722/1012700000042741563764362373032081_1.html https://www.chinastory.cn/ywdbk/english/v1/detail/20190722/1.... "Learning without thought is pointless, Thought without learning is dangerous". [6] Buddhist tradition, Dhammapada, Appamāda-vagga. https://suttacentral.net/dhp21-32/en/sujato https://suttacentral.net/dhp21-32/en/sujato. Dhammapada contrasts heedfulness with heedlessness, treating heedlessness as a central human failing. In one translation: “Heedfulness is the state free of death; heedlessness is the state of death. The heedful do not die, while the heedless are like the dead.” [7] Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, “Idols of the Mind” — 1620. https://history.hanover.edu/texts/bacon/novorg.html https://history.hanover.edu/texts/bacon/novorg.html. Bacon argues that the “Idols of the Tribe” are rooted in human nature itself, and that human understanding distorts reality like a false mirror.

djeastm 5mo ago
In a mathematical model of collective intelligence I think we need to also include a "productive use" factor. The total brain power of our species might be higher than in the past based on a summation, but how much per-capita intelligence is being utilized for productive/adaptive ends versus being being distracted from such ends? What's our distraction rate offset?
- ninjagoo 5mo ago
  > In a mathematical model of collective intelligence I think we need to also include a "productive use" factor. The total brain power of our species might be higher than in the past based on a summation, but how much per-capita intelligence is being utilized for productive/adaptive ends versus being being distracted from such ends? What's our distraction rate offset? Excellent question. Global GDP estimates going back to 1 CE are here [1][2]. I would argue that GDP is a good proxy for an estimate of the summation of per-capita intelligence being used for "productive" ends, by definition. But, the global average GDP per capita is [3] with a similar hockey-stick curve, and it is unclear whether the per-capita intelligence used for "productive" ends has also been increasing similarly, because the confounding factor is the effect of tools as force-multipliers (impact on productivity). The Flynn Effect is the strongest indicator that yes, average intelligence has been rising as measured in certain populations where cultural differences do not wreck the applicability of IQ tests. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-gdp-over-the-long-run https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-gdp-over-the-long-... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20260525015042/https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-gdp-over-the-long-run https://web.archive.org/web/20260525015042/https://ourworldi... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-average-gdp-per-capita-over-the-long-run https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-average-gdp-per-ca...
muttonette 5mo ago
Is a room with 300 morons and 1 genius more intelligent than a room with 10 morons and 1 genius? In my model, there is negative intelligence, so the 300 morons would actually be less intelligent. We do have more stupidity degrees of freedom, that’s for sure. That is, the domain of human stupidity is greatly expanded. Smart people can be stupid in an ever increasing number of ways. So a very bright person 100 years ago might appear very stupid if they were time machined into the now.

ranger_danger 5mo ago

Are you implying that all the scientific achievements of the last hundred years don't count somehow?

BigTTYGothGF 5mo ago
Did you perhaps miss this part: > Human knowledge, yes, but intelligence? of the post you responded to?
- k1musab1 5mo ago
  Proving the point, if anything.
nullsanity 5mo ago
[dead]

rrgok 5mo ago

What do you mean by intelligence? And by your definition of it, can intelligence be improved intentionally or it happens as it happens like for evolution? If it happens by intention then why we have not pushed it at its maximium yet?

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
kibwen 5mo ago
Let's start by using strength as an analogy. A human is strong when they develop their physical body to its potential. That means developing muscles, cardio, lung capacity, flexibility, etc. A human is weak when they fail to develop their physical body to its potential (we don't actually care how strong humans are compared to each other, only to themselves). We can then judge human populations based on, say, the strength of the median person. Intelligence is the same but for mental faculties. A human is intelligent when they develop their critical thinking, memory, focus, logical reasoning, etc. A human is unintelligent when they fail to develop these things to their personal potential. And when I look around me I see a culture of inustrial-strength distraction that has robbed people of their ability to focus, I see encyclopedias in everyone's pockets that have robbed them of any incentive to remember, I see a society of comfortable complacency that has shielded them from any consequence of poor logical reasoning, and with LLMs I see a mass surrender of the need to exercise critical thinking in exchange for the warm embrace of thoughtlessness. There's no reason that things need to be this way. The human hardware hasn't fundamentally changed in 100,000 years, and we have so many more resources today that it's easy to imagine that we could all be, collectively, more intelligent than ever if we could somehow inspire people to care. Sadly, we don't seem to be able to.
- SoftTalker 5mo ago
  Human nature is also hasn't fundamentally changed in 100,000 years. We'll mostly take the easy path, if it is made available to us.

layer8 5mo ago

“Pinnacle” just means “highest point” here. They are saying that AI might take human intelligence to a higher point than was previously reached. That’s debatable, of course, but isn’t what you seem to be arguing against.

satvikpendem 5mo ago
They know what pinnacle means, their point is intelligence is not knowledge. But I find that rather nitpicky as it's clear the top level comment just used one as a synonym for the other, not actually caring about the difference.
- layer8 5mo ago
  They wrote “I see no indication that current human intelligence is at anything close to a historical pinnacle.” That can only be the case if the highest point of human intelligence was in the past and they are opining that the current level of human intelligence isn’t anywhere close to that past high point. However, that assessment wouldn’t contradict what OP wrote, so it’s more likely that they take “pinnacle” to mean something else.

pepperoni_pizza 5mo ago

Maybe peak human intelligence is like peak oil - it only goes down from here. Like renewables were on track to bring us peak oil, maybe AI will bring us peak human intelligence.

oytis 5mo ago

Yeah, we peaked somewhere near the end of XIX century IMO. Before the transition to mass society.

micromacrofoot 5mo ago
we have more intelligent people than ever, but this also means we have more stupid people than ever

gls2ro 5mo ago

I assume you are here talking about political choices, social media influences, life style choices and so on. While all those are true they are not reflecting the level of intelligence of people: intelligent people take personal stupid decisions because while intelligence is a function of let's say the more "abstract brain", decisions are emotionally driven and influenced by the "ancient, threat focused, pleasure driven brain". Here is a quick way to think about this: some intelligent people are obease, some others don't exercise, and others don't take their health seriously while also working on the most amazing problems we ever solved. You know what's the biggest paradox here: they all have the capacity to understand fully the impact of their lifestyle on their health but still making a life style change is hard due to not being driven by knowledge and logic.

cubefox 5mo ago

> I see no indication that current human intelligence is at anything close to a historical pinnacle. Human knowledge, yes, but intelligence? No. Collectively, we're dumb and trending dumber We are at a peak in absolute terms, though the decline is coming quickly: https://x.com/jonatanpallesen/status/2034755779501105321 https://x.com/jonatanpallesen/status/2034755779501105321 But in relative terms intelligence has indeed been declining for a long time: https://x.com/jonatanpallesen/status/2034912319256330729 https://x.com/jonatanpallesen/status/2034912319256330729

quaintdev 5mo ago

Whenever this topic comes up I am reminded of the black and white picture of all the scientist of 19th century together. Each individual in that photo had contributed something to human knowledge. It feels like in 19th century we believed in our scientists and advancing our knowledge. I feel today celebrities are given more importance than our scientists. The best minds of our century are focused on extracting value from rest of the population.

anal_reactor 5mo ago
The era of scientists being celebrities is done for the simple reason that it's not possible for a single human to advance our knowledge. Breakthrough papers are published by large groups who build on knowledge created by even larger groups. Also, science used to directly correlate with improvements in life standards. Nowadays we see advancements in science (AI, psychology) used to actively reduce the standard of life.
EpiMath 5mo ago
Perhaps you are thinking of the 1927 Solvay Conference? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solvay_conference_1927.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solvay_conference_1927.jp...
mr_mitm 5mo ago
You probably mean the Solvay conference. I just wanted to append this link to your comment: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6e/Solvay_conference_1927.jpg/1920px-Solvay_conference_1927.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6e/So... It really is a remarkable picture, but I'd like to note that it's all physicists, not scientists in general. It was the golden era of physics.
- darkwater 5mo ago
  I know it's a typo but it's Solvay, not Solay.
- quaintdev 5mo ago
  Yes this is the one.

carlosjobim 5mo ago

Neither intelligence nor knowledge, if you mean us average people. But that shouldn't be any surprise. We're already at more than a hundred years of deliberate dumbing down of the population through schooling and mass media. These effects are exponential through generations.

beej71 5mo ago

If we train AI on human works and humans only do what the AI says, we're at a maximum.

satvikpendem 5mo ago

When was the historical pinnacle in your opinion?