[otoburb]

"[...] good notation is worth a whopping increment in IQ points. Except that the really good ones allow one to have thoughts that are impossible without."

I posit this post tangentially explains the nagging feeling that many parents[1] experience when their children struggle with mathematics. The benefits of basic language literacy are clear, but follow-on analogies such as the above emphasize a point of view concluding that an inability to attain mathematical fluency excludes the next generation from any implied augmented intelligence benefits.

The extrapolated message would be that mathematically disinclined adults will then be completely unable to comprehend certain important thoughts in [insert arcane, highly-specialized technical field].

Regarding the question posed by the title and last sentence in the blog post, I'm not sure why the thrust is framed as an XOR, and not as an AND. It's not like we can't focus on both IA and AI at the same time.

[1] Anecdata warning: I am a parent. I have this nagging feeling.

[amirouche]

> It's not like we can't focus on both IA and AI at the same time.

I think OP want to say that AI is a mean, whereas IA is an end. The real goal of AI is IA.

Also I think that aiming for IA will provide small benefits in the short term but a lot of benefit in the long term taking into consideration the slow pace of IA's innovations emergence like it's the case of GUIs (as explained in the article).

Whereas AI doesn't provide benefits in the short term at all if not applied to IA. From my AI enthusiast understanding, what happens is that instead of applying the discoveries of narrow AI, researcher are jumping into AGI which doesn't help to spread IA innovations and lower the chance of emergence of new discoveries not necessarily related to the field of IA or AI.

That's how I understand that aiming for IA provides more overall benefits.

[rntz]

> an inability to attain mathematical fluency excludes the next generation from any implied augmented intelligence benefits.

Well, only in some ways. I don't have to understand how a refrigerator works in order to use it. Improvements in quality of life produced by use of augmented intelligence ought to be accessible even to those without it.

[smegger001]

The problem only happens when no one bothers to learn how something works. Look at all of those big iron systems out there that few people know how to program, there is reason Cobol and Fortran programmers still make good money.

Oh and refrigeration is simple, it is just an application of the ideal gas law PV=nRT, and a pump. Refrigerant is compressed then cooled through use of a heat-sink then pumped into the refrigerator and allowed to expand where the refrigerant absorbs thermal energy and is pumped out and repeated.

[TrevorJ]

I'm not sure it's a problem. It's encapsulaiton. Systems should be designed so that there is a difference between the knowledge required to operate the device and the knowledge required to design/service it.

[jhanschoo]

i believe that the false dichotomy was used in order to attract clicks and to provide context for the relevance of IA. The article hardly talks about AI at all except that it was the AI agenda which IA was born from.