[nopinsight]

We should be mainly concerned with the unit of capability rather than of intelligence (for which there is no widely accepted standard measurement for non-human beings [1]) As we know, there are tasks that a less intelligent being can never accomplish no matter how much time and other resources it has.

If we use brain size as a rough proxy, ours is only three times as large as a chimp's but our capabilities for creation and destruction are vastly greater both in degree and range.

[1] IQ indicates the location in the distribution of intelligence within human population and it is flawed in many ways. The concept does not really apply to other beings.

[evanwise]

An analogous argument would hold in the case of "units of capability". Why do you think the problem of producing capable minds is any easier than the problem of producing intelligent minds? I'm not sure what the point of your chimp analogy is, unless you think I think that brain size is the unit of intelligence. Anyway, I'm also skeptical of the idea that there are such things as general "units of intelligence", but the entire notion of a superintelligence is predicated on the idea that intelligence is a general quality and can be meaningfully quantified. It's not clear to me how we'd even define superintelligence without reference to some quantitative measure of intelligence, although if you'd like to try, I'd be interested.