I’m not quite sure I would agree with this yet, though I can see the case being made for it.
I think it mostly comes down to how much you think you can improve worldwide outcomes by increasing the abilities of those at the top vs bringing up those with the least.
Iodine supplementation in the developing world, for example, is probably the single most cost-effective way of increasing average IQ per capita worldwide. It also helps prevent other problems like hypothyroidism.
So if just increasing IQ per capita is your goal, polygenic embryo selection is not going to come anywhere close to iodine supplementation.
Of course, iodine supplementation is not going to give you any more geniuses, and geniuses per capita has an incredibly strong impact on human progress.
I really, really wish we could just ban AI improvements and focus on enhancing human intelligence and morality for a few decades. The reason I originally became interested in embryo selection was that I thought that genetic engineering might be a potential solution to the alignment problem (not to mention many of the other problems the human species faces). But it’s going to take at least 20 years to work (and realistically more like 30-40) to have a large impact. I’d put the odds of us getting to AGI before that at like 90%. The only path I can see now involves a worldwide ban on AI capabilities improvements.
I’m not quite sure I would agree with this yet, though I can see the case being made for it.
I think it mostly comes down to how much you think you can improve worldwide outcomes by increasing the abilities of those at the top vs bringing up those with the least.
Iodine supplementation in the developing world, for example, is probably the single most cost-effective way of increasing average IQ per capita worldwide. It also helps prevent other problems like hypothyroidism.
So if just increasing IQ per capita is your goal, polygenic embryo selection is not going to come anywhere close to iodine supplementation.
Of course, iodine supplementation is not going to give you any more geniuses, and geniuses per capita has an incredibly strong impact on human progress.
I really, really wish we could just ban AI improvements and focus on enhancing human intelligence and morality for a few decades. The reason I originally became interested in embryo selection was that I thought that genetic engineering might be a potential solution to the alignment problem (not to mention many of the other problems the human species faces). But it’s going to take at least 20 years to work (and realistically more like 30-40) to have a large impact. I’d put the odds of us getting to AGI before that at like 90%. The only path I can see now involves a worldwide ban on AI capabilities improvements.