--- On Sun, 10/19/08, Samantha Atkins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Matt Mahoney wrote: > > There is > > currently a global brain (the world economy) with an IQ of > > around 10^10, and approaching 10^12. > > Oh man. It is so tempting in today's economic morass > to point out the > obvious stupidity of this purported super-super-genius. > Why would you > assign such an astronomical intelligence to the economy?
Without the economy, or the language and culture needed to support it, you would be foraging for food and sleeping in the woods. You would not know that you could grow crops by planting seeds, or that you could make a spear out of sticks and rocks and use it for hunting. There is a 99.9% chance that you would starve because the primitive earth could only support a few million humans, not a few billions. I realize it makes no sense to talk of an IQ of 10^10 when current tests only go to about 200. But by any measure of goal achievement, such as dollars earned or number of humans that can be supported, the global brain has enormous intelligence. It is a known fact that groups of humans collectively make more accurate predictions than their members, e.g. prediction markets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market Such markets would not work if the members did not individually think that they were smarter than the group (i.e. disagree). You may think you could run the government better than current leadership, but it is a fact that people are better off (as measured by GDP and migration) in democracies than dictatorships. Group decision making is also widely used in machine learning, e.g. the PAQ compression programs. > How much of the advancement of humanity is the > result of a relatively few exceptionally bright minds > rather than the billions of lesser intelligences? Very little, because agents at any intelligence level cannot detect higher intelligence. Socrates was executed. Galileo was arrested. Even today, there is a span of decades between pioneering scientific work and its recognition with a Nobel prize. So I don't expect anyone to recognize the intelligence of the economy. But your ability to read this email depends more on circuit board assemblers in Malaysia than you are willing to give the world credit for. -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
