[forgetfulness]

And many among the Average Joes will not measure up to this ideal man of science and art. In truth you'll see that I'm not advocating for the rights of as-of-yet non-sapient computer programs, but to think of what this means about people.

If we're setting the bar of personhood or dignity to being exceptional researchers and engineers, it doesn't bode well for the masses that aren't and won't be. Maybe this will result in a society of leisure where everyone can be that! I wouldn't bet on it, there's already more PhDs in the sciences and humanities than society can fit, and humans may just not work that way.

You're already dismissing concerns about the welfare of the merely average, for being unfit when competing with the Machine Learning models we may have in the near future.

[mdp2021]

> You're already dismissing concerns about the welfare of the merely average

This writer individually: no, not literally «dismissing», it is just that I could not grasp precisely your point in this specific area. And I would say, as I wrote just earlier, «Inability to recognize intelligence is and will be devastating»: it already happens that an inability to discriminate ("It takes it to see it") will hide from the sight to some manager the critical risks that the underdeveloped sense of some workers will pose, and such risk will increase when they will have to compete with even riskier and less endowed entities that may be confused for acceptable - since this is what has been showing even here in the past times.

This issue comes from a devaluation of actual intelligence.

> If we're setting the bar of personhood or dignity to being exceptional researchers and engineers

Not really. Look, a few weeks ago this HN member had some heavy exchange with others to which it was said "there is no intelligence if there is no critical thinking", and some arrived to call that position "delirious". Now a rebuttal would have been, "Ask your grandmother". Because there is a "high culture", that of the Professor and the Professional, and "low culture", that of the Teacher and of the Relative, it does not take the former to have good judgement - the latter suffices plentifully, when not polluted.

So, you do not need to have the bar set to «exceptional researchers and engineers» - just a good grandmother. Who could have been an «exceptional researchers and engineer», in case, if life so determined - because "the requirements were there", available.

[forgetfulness]

Invoking the image of the woman that may have been denied opportunities because of her gender in the 1950s is an emotional appeal to convince oneself that inside every human is a latent Leonardo da Vinci.

[mdp2021]

A million times no:

the point was very definitely not about «hav[ing] been denied opportunities», the idea of the relevance of a «gender» and gender issues is completely only thrown in by the reader, that of the «1950s» confirms misunderstanding because the point was not localized in space and time:

I very literally stated that "you can set the bar to" «just a good grandmother». The reference to «exceptional researchers and engineers» related to the grandmother was just that "you do not need a Professor, but something that has the basic requirements - good sense, intelligence - to become one in case, suffices.

It is not the bar "«of personhood or dignity»" as the poster originally proposed: it is the bar to be a proper social actor. And it is a requirement that has always been there, and which today is in the highlight, given that some are advancing the idea that a pseudo-parrot may suffice.

"Good sense" should better return as a definite Value.