Presumably the aim is to enhance human intellectual capabilities, not necessarily the level of innate human intelligence. Looking at it that way, improvements to education seem like a much more promising approach (which isn’t to say that one shouldn’t do both, of course).
One might object that people have been trying to improve education for millennia, so why would one think there’s any low-hanging fruit to be had here? There are two reasons. One is that enhancing intellectual capabilities has not been the only goal of education (or even the primary goal, or in many situations, any sort of goal at all). So if one actually tried to educate people with that aim, one might do much better. And indeed, one sees some examples of how this seems possible - John Stuart Mill, the Polgar sisters, https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xPJKZyPCvap4Fven8/the-atomic-bomb-considered-as-hungarian-high-school-science for example. The other reason is that recent technological advances (internet search, AI) may allow for improvements that aren’t fully captured without substantial changes to how one approaches education.
Presumably the aim is to enhance human intellectual capabilities, not necessarily the level of innate human intelligence. Looking at it that way, improvements to education seem like a much more promising approach (which isn’t to say that one shouldn’t do both, of course).
One might object that people have been trying to improve education for millennia, so why would one think there’s any low-hanging fruit to be had here? There are two reasons. One is that enhancing intellectual capabilities has not been the only goal of education (or even the primary goal, or in many situations, any sort of goal at all). So if one actually tried to educate people with that aim, one might do much better. And indeed, one sees some examples of how this seems possible - John Stuart Mill, the Polgar sisters, https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xPJKZyPCvap4Fven8/the-atomic-bomb-considered-as-hungarian-high-school-science for example. The other reason is that recent technological advances (internet search, AI) may allow for improvements that aren’t fully captured without substantial changes to how one approaches education.