Couldn’t there be genetic effects on things that can improve the brain even once its NN structure is mostly fixed? Maybe it’s possible to have neurons work faster, or for the brain to wear less with abstract thinking, or to need less sleep.
This kind of thing is not a full intelligence improvement because it does not allow you to notice more patterns or to think with new schemes.
So maybe yes, it won’t make a difference for AI timelines, though it would still be a very big deal.
Sure—I’m not saying no improvement is possible. I expect that the enhancements from adult gene editing should encompass most all of the brain tweaks you can get from drugs/diet. But those interventions will not convert an average brain into an Einstein.
The brain—or more specifically the brains of very intelligent people—are already very efficient, so I’m also just skeptical in general that there are many remaining small tweaks that take you past the current “very intelligent”. Biological brains beyond the human limit are of course possible, but probably require further significant size expansion amongst other infeasible changes.
Sleep is very important, less isn’t really better—most of the critical cortex learning/training happens during sleep through episodic replay, SWRs and REM etc.
Couldn’t there be genetic effects on things that can improve the brain even once its NN structure is mostly fixed? Maybe it’s possible to have neurons work faster, or for the brain to wear less with abstract thinking, or to need less sleep.
This kind of thing is not a full intelligence improvement because it does not allow you to notice more patterns or to think with new schemes.
So maybe yes, it won’t make a difference for AI timelines, though it would still be a very big deal.
Sure—I’m not saying no improvement is possible. I expect that the enhancements from adult gene editing should encompass most all of the brain tweaks you can get from drugs/diet. But those interventions will not convert an average brain into an Einstein.
The brain—or more specifically the brains of very intelligent people—are already very efficient, so I’m also just skeptical in general that there are many remaining small tweaks that take you past the current “very intelligent”. Biological brains beyond the human limit are of course possible, but probably require further significant size expansion amongst other infeasible changes.
Sleep is very important, less isn’t really better—most of the critical cortex learning/training happens during sleep through episodic replay, SWRs and REM etc.