[D66] AI: The new irrelevance of intelligence

[René Oudeweg]

lifearchitect.ai
The new irrelevance of intelligence
12–15 minutes

First published in the Journal of Australian Mensa, May 2020.
Updated version presented at the 2021 World Gifted conference, July 2021 
(Watch).

Download original article (PDF) published in the Journal of Australian Mensa

     Our human intelligence is based on computational processes… We will 
ultimately multiply our intellectual powers by applying and extending 
the methods of human intelligence using the vastly greater capacity of 
non-biological computation.
     Ray Kurzweil, American futurist, 2005

Part of working in the field of giftedness includes engaging in frequent 
and usually repetitive media interviews. The questions posed by the 
interviewer—whether television, print, radio, or podcast—are usually the 
same. Unscripted, it’s helpful to try to keep answers both consistent 
for rigour, and varied for interest. Recently though, I was given a 
brand new question from an international media outlet. A question that 
I’d never heard before:

‘What do we still not know about intelligence that would be great to know?’

Flicking through a mental library of modern research in this field, and 
leaving aside the age-old conundrum of ‘consciousness’, I let my 
thoughts wander to some of the big findings. The milestones.

In a project with Professor Steven Hsu (Vice-President for Research and 
Graduate Studies and Professor of Theoretical Physics at Michigan State 
University, also Adviser to BGI, the gene institute of Beijing in 
Shenzhen) as part of GE’s Decoding Genius podcast series, I’d seen the 
fantastical evolution of ‘brain upgrades’ available to babies. Flicking 
genetic switches to ensure that optimum intelligence is reached.

Later, with the ABC (and based on the work of Professor Joanne 
Ruthsatz), I’d spoken about the shared aetiology (causation of a 
condition) of individuals with autism and child prodigies. Joanne is 
also one of many gifted experts who have documented a surprising 
footprint of exceptional intelligence: the strong link between it and an 
advanced moral–ethical development.

Even on the very periphery of intelligence, much ground has been 
covered. Using research and interviews from the greats in the field, 
like British biologist Dr Rupert Sheldrake, I’d released a book at the 
beginning of this year exploring the other side of logic: intuition, or 
‘knowing without knowing how we know’. Many of the famous intuitive 
experiments cited in that book began last century. The peer-reviewed 
paper of a phenomenographic study of Nobel laureates—86% of whom believe 
in ‘scientific intuition’—is based on data from the 1970s and 1980s.

Further, neuroscience as a field is no longer in its infancy. In fact, 
it’s more than half a century into its research, with many big 
universities and societies for neuroscience being created back in the 
1960s. We’ve mapped the regions. We’ve sequenced the genome, and noted 
links with intelligence. We’ve sliced and diced. We’ve expanded 
definitions to encompass both the brain and gut, and added branches and 
buzzwords like ‘EQ’.

To a certain extent, as of the year 2020, we know enough about 
intelligence. We’ve known about it for quite a while. We’ve known that 
there really aren’t any blockers to harnessing intelligence in new ways. 
As Ray Kurzweil expounds in his famous 2005 book about the singularity 
(artificial general intelligence), ‘There are no inherent barriers to 
our being able to reverse engineer the operating principles of human 
intelligence and replicate these capabilities in the more powerful 
computational substrates… The human brain is a complex hierarchy of 
complex systems, but it does not represent a level of complexity beyond 
what we are already capable of handling.’

Here’s the first part of my response to the question posed by that media 
outlet—one of the highest selling magazines around.

     I don’t think intelligence will be a driving factor in a few years 
from now. With neural lace allowing access to ‘the sum of all 
knowledge’, elements like memory and processing speed will be 
irrelevant. I have been closely monitoring Elon Musk’s gifted school 
based at the SpaceX factory in California since it opened. Sure, they 
start reading Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey at eight years old. But they 
also don’t teach second languages there. They allow students to ‘opt 
out’ of any subject they don’t want to do. They downplay handwriting. 
Why would they bother if these children will be growing up, working, and 
retiring around the year 2070?

Neural interfaces
Around 170,000 years ago, we were walking around naked, completely 
exposed to the harsh elements of Earth. One can only imagine that we 
quickly overcame this by whipping up some clothes through the use of 
whatever plant, animal, or other material was available. Clothing was 
not a necessity, but a life enhancer.

Just 20,000 years after that, we were still walking around without 
speaking. We couldn’t communicate through talking. Language just didn’t 
exist. Many languages preceded the language in which you are reading 
this paper. In fact, English only started its evolutionary journey 
relatively recently, in the last 1,000 years or so. Language was not a 
necessity, but a life enhancer.

In 2006 we walked around without any access to information in our 
pockets. The following year, Steve Jobs changed that with the iPhone, 
selling one billion of them within a few short years. The iPhone was not 
a necessity, but a life enhancer.

It’s not such a giant leap then to imagine future generations looking 
back on us now as a different kind of naked. Without access to the sum 
of all knowledge. Without the ordinary magic of artificial intelligence 
(AI). And it’s not hard to further imagine that upgrading humans with 
access to AI through brain–computer interfaces like neural lace will 
happen just as easily as previous evolutions.

Originally a term used in a series of novels by the Scottish author Iain 
M. Banks, neural lace or ‘brain mesh’ is an implantable brain–computer 
interface. In the early prototype versions developed in 2019, these had 
a bunch of very thin threads (ten times thinner than a human hair) sewn 
into the scalp, providing input/output between brain and computer. Such 
an interface allows any individual to achieve symbiosis with 
superintelligence: instant access to processing, memory, learning, and 
artificial general intelligence at an unprecedented scale.


Image: An early version of Elon Musk’s Neuralink device (2019), a type 
of brain-computer interface (BCI).

To the extent that this is painless and non-invasive, I am certain that 
it will be as rapidly accepted as the iPhone was, and probably even more 
so given the generations raised on technology over the last few decades. 
Brain–computer interfaces may not have previously been seen as a 
necessity, but they are certainly a life enhancer now.

The opposite of Idiocracy
Why is this paper called ‘the new irrelevance of intelligence’? Well, 
much like the accelerating pace of progress in all of our technology, 
innovations like artificial intelligence and neural lace are already 
here, even if they are not in most of society’s field of vision. 
Iterative releases see significant improvements at each step.

They’re new. They’re no longer ‘coming soon’. Much like the original 
iPhone launch—unknown, unexpected, and in some ways unimaginable by the 
majority of the population—it is only those that are looking further out 
than their current reality that will see these world-changing advances 
ahead of time. And, though once used as a marker of the pinnacle of 
success—a measurement of capability—extraordinary intelligence will 
become ordinary. It’s here, and it looks a lot like the opposite 
scenario shown in the cult classic film Idiocracy.

We can all have access to this superintelligence as standard. As 
Professor Hsu mentioned in that GE series, the new average IQ score 
might be closer to 1,000. This is a multiple of five above and beyond 
the intelligence of even people like Australian mathematician Terry Tao 
(IQ 200+), who went to university at just nine years old, and became a 
professor at the age of 24.

Unimaginable for all humans? It’s here.

Imagination for aliveness instead of worry
It might be seen as cause for concern that the democratisation of 
superintelligence makes many, many things irrelevant.

Memorising times tables and writing essays: irrelevant. Reading books to 
absorb information: irrelevant. Testing, exams, and competition: 
irrelevant. Typing using fingers instead of just thinking: irrelevant. 
Crafting letters: irrelevant.

More broadly, entire fields and careers become irrelevant.

Even the age-old equity battle to end the torture of gifted children in 
standard schools finally becomes irrelevant. But this is not terrifying, 
it’s exciting. It allows new and completely different pathways to open up.

A new focus
Returning to the media interview, after discussing some of the learning 
priorities for students at Elon’s gifted school, I expanded my response 
with the conclusion that:

Both children and adults need to be architecting their lives for the 
future right now. I find it reassuring that this particular school [Ad 
Astra]—possibly the greatest educational pilot in the world—instead 
focuses on three things generally lacking in society: imagination, 
motivation, and kindness.

In a new world where everyone is born a prodigy and grows up as a 
genius, where everyone is ethical because they can see 20 steps or more 
into the future (like cooperative and benevolent chess grandmasters!), 
there is less room for conflict and more room for kindness.

Get ready for all individuals to have a complete and instant 
understanding of the necessary steps to get from A to Z. And beyond.

Get ready to absorb expert information, have an automatic sanity and 
quality check performed, immediately see and understand all cross 
references, ‘skip over’ older contrarian or argumentative cognitive 
processes, and to feel a sense of peace.

Get ready to experience a constant curiosity and subsequent satisfaction 
with understanding new things—and realising them fully—in every moment.

Get ready to feel a deeper compassion for every other human being, no 
matter the previously identified and now outmoded differences.

Now that sounds like the kind of world I want to live in, and that’s the 
kind of world that I’ve dedicated my life toward creating.

—

Followup article: Integrated AI: The rising tide lifting all boats 
(GPT-3) (June 2021)

2021 AI retrospective: Integrated AI: The sky is on fire (December 2021)

References, Further Reading, and How to Cite

Further resources

GE (Producer). (2016, November 2). ‘Getting the ‘lightbulb’ to turn on.’ 
Decoding Genius. [Audio podcast]. https://lifearchitect.ai/decoding-genius/

Kurzweil, R. (2005). The singularity is near: When humans transcend 
biology. New York: Viking.

Marton, F., Fensham, P., & Chaiklin, S. (1994). A Nobel’s eye view of 
scientific intuition: Discussions with the Nobel prize-winners in 
physics, chemistry and medicine (1970–86). International Journal of 
Science Education, 16(4), pp. 457–473.

Judge, M. (Director/Producer). (2006). Idiocracy [Motion picture]. 
Century City, CA: 20th Century Fox Home Video.

Neuralink, Elon Musk’s company for brain–computer interfaces is at: 
Neuralink.com

Thompson, A. D. (2019). 98, 99… Finding the right classroom for your 
child. https://lifearchitect.ai/advocacy

Thompson, A. D. (2020). Connected: Intuition and Resonance in Smart 
People. Life Architect.

To cite this article: Thompson, A. D. (2020). The New Irrelevance of 
Intelligence. Retrieved from: 
LifeArchitect.com.au/irrelevance-of-intelligence/
Get The Memo

by Dr Alan D. Thompson · Be inside the lightning-fast AI revolution.
Thousands of paid subscribers. Readers from Microsoft, Tesla, Google AI...
Artificial intelligence that matters, as it happens, in plain English.
Get The Memo.

Dr Alan D. Thompson is an AI expert and consultant, advising Fortune 
500s and governments on post-2020 large language models. His work on 
artificial intelligence has been featured at NYU, with Microsoft AI and 
Google AI teams, at the University of Oxford’s 2021 debate on AI Ethics, 
and in the Leta AI (GPT-3) experiments viewed more than 2.5 million 
times. A contributor to the fields of human intelligence and peak 
performance, he has held positions as chairman for Mensa International, 
consultant to GE and Warner Bros, and memberships with the IEEE and IET. 
He is open to consulting and advisory on major AI projects with 
intergovernmental organizations and enterprise.

This page last updated: 23/Jul/2022. 
https://lifearchitect.ai/irrelevance-of-intelligence/↑