Breaking the
Intelligence Curse
When intelligence becomes something you buy rather than something you raise, the powerful stop needing people. That is the curse.
The diagnosis is not mine. It comes from The Intelligence Curse, which argues that once cognitive work can be bought, the incentive to invest in populations goes with it. I find the argument persuasive and the response underdeveloped. Most writing on it stops at the warning.
This series starts after the warning. It takes the curse apart into the separate mechanisms that drive it, then goes looking for things that would actually break them. Every proposed fix is scored on the same six criteria and put to a public vote, so you can see where my judgement and the readers’ come apart.
The problems
All 1The curse is several mechanisms pointing the same way, and they do not share a cure.
The solutions
All 1Ranked by how much I think each would actually bite. My score on the left, the readers’ needle beside it.
The criteria
How scoring worksOne to five on each, five always the good end, combined into a single reading out of 100.
- ToothinessIf this were adopted in full, how much would it actually bite?30%
- FeasibilityDo we know how to do this?20%
- AffordabilityCould this be paid for?10%
- Public acceptanceWould the public back this?15%
- Lab acceptanceWould the frontier labs go along with it?15%
- IndependenceHow few parties have to agree before this works at all?10%