How does someone prove that their general intelligence is above average?
post by M. Y. Zuo · 2024-09-16T21:01:38.529Z · LW · GW · 10 commentsThis is a question post.
Contents
Answers 8 Linch None 10 comments
Many talk about IQ in many places, in all kinds of contexts and situations, and IQ can be ‘provable’ to a certain degree of reliability and consistency using methods such as Raven’s progressive matrices.
But how is the general intelligence of the individual proven to any degree of reliability/consistency/validity/etc…?
The only way I can think of is successfully predicting the future in a way and publicly sharing the predictions before and after, many many many times in a row. And in such a way that no interested parties could realistically help them fake it.
And the only practical way to realize this, that I can think of now, is by predicting the largest stock markets such as the NYSE, via some kind of options trading, many many many times within say a calendar year, and then showing their average rate of their returns is significantly above random chance.
And even this is kind of iffy, since it would require sharing most of their trades publicly, along with the possibility of ‘cheating’ with insider information.
Has anyone thought about the exact methods that are feasible?
Edit: Any such methods would probably also apply to AI but I don’t want to extrapolate too far.
Answers
There's no such thing as "true" general intelligence. There's just a bunch of specific cognitive traits that happen to (usually) be positively correlated with each other. Some proxies are more indicative than others (in the sense that getting high scores on them consistently correlate with doing well on other proxies), and that's about the best you can hope for.
Within the human range of intelligence and domains we're interested in, IQ is decent, so are standardized test scores, so (after adjusting for a few things like age and location of origin) is income, so is vocabulary, so (to a lesser degree) is perception of intelligence by peers, and so forth.
↑ comment by M. Y. Zuo · 2024-09-19T15:57:35.730Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I am not asking about ‘true’ general intelligence? Or whatever that implies.
If your not sure, I am asking regarding the term commonly called ‘general intelligence’, or sometimes also known as ‘general mental ability factor’ or ‘g-factor’, in mainstream academic papers. Such as those found in pedagogy, memetics, genetics, etc…
See: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%252C5&q=“general+intelligence”&btnG=
Where many many thousands of researchers over the last few decades are referring to this.
Here is a direct quote by a pretty well known expert among intelligence researchers, writing in 2004:
“ During the past few decades, the word intelligence has been attached to an increasing number of different forms of competence and accomplishment-emo-tional intelligence, football intelligence, and so on. Researchers in the field, however, have largely abandoned the term, together with their old debates over what sorts of abilities should and should not be classified as part of intelligence. Helped by the advent of new technologies for researching the brain, they have increasingly turned their attention to a century-old concept of a single overarching mental power. They call it simply g, which is short for the general mental ability factor. The g factor is a universal and reliably measured distinction among humans in their ability to learn, reason, and solve problems. It corresponds to what most people mean when they describe some individuals as smarter than others, and it's well measured by IQ (intelligence quotient) tests, which assess high-level mental skills such as the ability to draw inferences, see similarities and differences, and process complex information of virtually any kind. Understanding g's biological basis in the brain is the new frontier in intelligence research today. The g factor was discovered by the first mental testers, who found that people who scored well on one type of mental test tended to score well on all of them. Regardless of their contents (words, numbers, pictures, shapes), how they are administered (individually or in groups; orally, in writing, or pantomimed), or what they're intended to measure (vocabulary, mathematical reasoning, spatial ability), all mental tests measure mostly the same thing. This common factor, g, can be distilled from scores on any broad set of cognitive tests, and it takes the same form among individuals of every age, race, sex, and nation yet studied. In other words, the g factor exists independently of schooling, paper-and-pencil tests, and culture.”
10 comments
Comments sorted by top scores.
comment by jimrandomh · 2024-09-17T00:33:02.139Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
And the only practical way to realize this, that I can think of now, is by predicting the largest stock markets such as the NYSE, via some kind of options trading, many many many times within say a calendar year, and then showing their average rate of their returns is significantly above random chance.
The threshold for doing this isn't being above average relative to human individuals, it's being close to the top relative to specialized institutions. That can occasionally be achievable, but usually it isn't.
Replies from: M. Y. Zuo↑ comment by M. Y. Zuo · 2024-09-17T01:05:04.221Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Well I agree it is a much higher bar than just ‘above average’, yet it still seems like the easiest way of delivering a credible proof that can’t be second guessed somehow. (That I can think of, hence the post)
Since ‘cheating’ at this would also mean that the person somehow has gained insider information for a calendar year that was above and beyond what the same ‘specialized institutions’ could obtain.
Which is so vanishingly unlikely that I think pretty much everyone (>99% of readers) would accept the results as the bonafide truth.
But it probably is limited only to literal geniuses and above as a practical mechanism.
Replies from: Mo Nastri↑ comment by Mo Putera (Mo Nastri) · 2024-09-18T04:58:48.255Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
By this assessment, who in real life do you think has proven above-average intelligence?
Replies from: M. Y. Zuocomment by jimrandomh · 2024-09-17T00:37:02.587Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Standardized tests work, within the range they're testing for. You don't need to overthink that part. If you want to make people's intelligence more legible and more provable, what you have is more of a social and logistical issue: how do you convince people to publish their test scores, get people to care about those scores, and ensure that the scores they publish are real and not the result of cheating?
Replies from: M. Y. Zuocomment by Dagon · 2024-09-17T03:51:03.857Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Proving to whom, and to what degree of credence, and avoiding what correlated measures? Standardized tests, like the SAT, are perfectly fine at showing "above average", for most purposes. They're not very fine-grained, so it's hard to tell "very slightly above average", and not very accurate for outliers, so can't distinguish between 90th and 99th percentile with much certainty. But they're just fine for showing "very likely above average" for a lot of uses.
I'm not sure there exists a formal operational definition of "general intelligence", there's no direct measurement possible. Still, if "above average or not above average" is the criteria, most correlates are usable.
Replies from: M. Y. Zuo↑ comment by M. Y. Zuo · 2024-09-17T17:10:36.326Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Since I’m asking LW readers I imagine the default ‘degree of credence’ for any proof is something that the vast majority of LW readers will accept as the actual, bonafide, truth and are willing to acknowledge this when presented with it.
And predicting the future on a global scale, successfully, repeatedly, and precisely, has no correlated measures, if we assume precognition is impossible.
So we can conveniently sidestep this issue. Hence why I mentioned it…
I'm not sure there exists a formal operational definition of "general intelligence", there's no direct measurement possible
Then how can anyone prove, in the future, whether an AGI exists, or not?
Replies from: Dagon↑ comment by Dagon · 2024-09-17T23:36:26.196Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Oh. Your model of LW readers is very different from mine - I doubt there exists anything that "the vast majority" will accept as "actual, bonafide truth". In fact, words like actual and bonafide are likely to confuse most of us, and we'll want clarification.
Then how can anyone prove, in the future, whether an AGI exists, or not?
I don't think anyone can (and I don't think they'll have to - it'll either be self-evident or irrelevant). But you said you didn't want to extrapolate to that anyway.
Replies from: M. Y. Zuo