Superintelligence

Answer to the 2009 EDGE QUESTION: “WHAT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING?” Nick Bostrom www.nickbostrom.com Intelligence is a big deal. Humanity owes its dominant position on Earth not to any special strength of our muscles, nor any unusual sharpness of our teeth, but to the unique ingenuity of our brains. It is our brains that are responsible for the complex social organization and the accumulation of technical, economic, and scientific advances that, for better and worse, undergird modern civilization. All our technological inventions, philosophical ideas, and scientific theories have gone through the birth canal of the human intellect. Arguably, human brain power is the chief rate‐limiting factor in the development of human civilization. Unlike the speed of light or the mass of the electron, human brain power is not an eternally fixed constant. Brains can be enhanced. And, in principle, machines can be made to process information as efficiently as — or more efficiently than — biological nervous systems. There are multiple paths to greater intelligence. By ʺintelligenceʺ I here refer to the panoply of cognitive capacities, including not just book‐smarts but also creativity, social intuition, wisdom, etc. Letʹs look first at how we might enhance our biological brains. There are of course the traditional means: education and training, and development of better methodologies and conceptual frameworks. Also, neurological development can be improved through better infant nutrition, reduced pollution, adequate sleep and exercise, and prevention of diseases that affect the brain. We can use biotech to enhance cognitive capacity, by developing pharmaceuticals that improve memory, concentration, and mental energy; or we could achieve these ends with genetic selection and genetic engineering. We can invent external aids to boost our effective intelligence — notepads, spreadsheets, visualization software. We can also improve our collective intelligence. We can do so via norms and conventions — such as the norm against using ad hominem arguments in scientific discussions — and by improving epistemic institutions such the scientific journal, anonymous peer review, and the patent system. We can increase humanityʹs joint problem‐solving capacity by creating more people or by integrating a greater fraction of the worldʹs existing