[Practicality]

It seems obvious to me that IA is where the tremendous benefits to society occur. Imagine a world where everyone has the equivalent of a genius IQ today. A lot of problems suddenly disappear.

AI, on the other hand, while very useful, doesn't change people. And frankly, most problems we have are because people lack understanding. I don't know about you, but I don't actually want to replace mankind with something else, I just want us all better.

Of course, what "better" is--is highly debatable, so that definitely gives pause as well.

[barteklev]

I would rethink statement, that AI doesn't change people. In my opinion it does it indirectly. AFAIK it's well documented fact that Google has changed the way our brains work. Would it be possible if Google had no AI? I ask, don't realy know.

How about computer games? I daresay that experience created with them can be beneficial to inteligence. Interaction with AI in games happen to be interesting to take a look at.

Except that think that process of creating AI is an IA experience. If you want to make AI you wonder what make you inteligent. As you observe your outcome you understand your inteligence better. Better understanding better inteligence.

All in all, I don't get why AI would exclude IA (or oposite). Although I'm grateful for sharing an idea of IA.

[Practicality]

Fair enough. I think that we need both. Just that I believe that we benefit more from the IA than the AI. The AI is the tool that gets us there. We need AI, but it's not enough.

[nickpsecurity]

It's not even speculation: your point has tons of evidence backing it. I remember when I did AI that "automatic programming" was something we wanted. My research led to a project called The Programmer's Apprentice from MIT. The idea, since auto prog wasn't working, was a more limited A.I. that became an extension of programmer's mind to automate some work, analyse others, optimize even more, and so on. Not sure where that went but a Java programmer's explanation of NetBeans was deja vu. ;) A programmer with a text editor vs one with modern tools (I.A. + A.I.) is a game-changing difference that did effectively increase intelligence of the work.

Likewise, people not so smart with numbers had calculators. People needing conversions have Google and Frick. There's financial and accounting packages that can convert lots of numerical assessments into simpler forms to aid the user's understanding. ERP and BPM, done right, let a person ignore inconsequential details to focus on high-level aspects of business operation. Wikipedia for summaries + Google for details and verification let one amass expertise in a new domain rapidly.

And so on and so forth. Intelligence Augmentation and Artificial Intelligence both have proven value. Both are used today. So, we can keep both. :)

[johnchristopher]

> It seems obvious to me that IA is where the tremendous benefits to society occur. Imagine a world where everyone has the equivalent of a genius IQ today. A lot of problems suddenly disappear.

Except most `genius IQ' don't end up as high achievers or even happier persons.

[Practicality]

I think this is because they spend most of their lives dealing with unnecessary conflict and isolation since most people don't understand them. Being a genius doesn't remove the need for social acceptance built into human beings.

As such many with a genius IQ pretend not to be in order to be accepted. So their talents are wasted.

However, if everyone was augmented there would be no need to pretend to be "normal" just to be accepted. So much more could then be accomplished.

In fact, I think today's "normal" would be tomorrow's "intellectual disability."

There are many successful geniuses as well. And those are often wildly successful. Again, if everyone was that way it would be acceptable, rather than odd, to care about real achievements.

[mziel]

> A lot of problems suddenly disappear.

Not to be negative but citation needed.

Also (I guess we'll cross "isolation" of the list): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_giftedness#Social...

[Practicality]

An interesting point. I think your citation adds to the point though.

In observing my "normal" peers, honestly, they do a lot of very strange things just to be considered normal.

I mean, it's pretty expensive just to keep up with current trend of sunglasses size or sock length, just to be seen as normal.

Not to mention that you have to hold your hands a certain way and talk incoherently.

There is a lot of "normalizing" behavior that becomes unnecessary when everyone has the capacity to see how inane and impractical such behavior really is.

[ycosynot]

A lot of smart men have been passionate about the proportion of columns, or the proportion of numbers, or even the aesthetics of curly braces. So why is it inane to care about the proportion of clothing, or the angle of the hand? I think people play to their strength. Also, the trend has to change as the world changes, because aesthetics is about the whole. So it's not because it's everchanging that it's necessarily arbitrary. The more one can afford not to care about it, the more impractical it is, but I wouldn't say it is impractical to society. It is architecture for the person.

[logicchains]

>Isolation is one of the main challenges faced by gifted individuals, especially those with no social network of gifted peers. In order to gain popularity, gifted children will often try to hide their abilities to win social approval.

That seems to suggest the cause of the problem is a lack of high IQ individuals. If the majority had a high IQ due to IA, nobody would feel isolated by their high IQ (although then the low IQ minority might feel isolated).