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US Intelligence Wants Tools To Tell: Who's the Smartest of Them All?
coondoggie writes Can a tool or technology be applied to the brain and accurately predict out of a given group of people who will be the smartest? The research arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) is looking for exactly those kinds of tools."IARPA is looking to get a handle on the state of the art in brain-based predictors of future cognitive performance. In particular, IARPA is interested in non-invasive analyses of brain structure and/or function that can be used to predict who will best learn complex skills and accomplish tasks within real-world environments, and with outcome measures, that are relevant to national security.
They want the smartest and fastest and strongest - where are you Jason Bourne?
...the ultimate gentleman spy.
Yeah, baby!
That's a fact.
What's 'national security'? I mean, is there a rigorous definition of it?
You teach people stuff and then you see how well they retained it and how well they can apply it.
Of course you'll have to define what "smartest" means to use any such results and to set the questions. That's the real challenge. Otherwise a beautician might be considered smartest. Usually we use math, pattern recognition and logic questions. Would be interesting to see how you could significantly improve over that with brain scans. Isn't Einstein's brain preserved somewhere? Ahhh yes here we go....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein%27s_brain
and I don't even know why
Obviously intelligence varies from person to person and we have tests like IQ tests that can measure this
but IQ tests are not super good at measuring people who are successful at accomplishing tasks because
it takes more than raw intelligence. Things like willpower, dedication, creativity, work ethic, etc... all play
into whether someone is successful at accomplishing tasks. I don't see how a brain scanner is going to
accomplish this or how it would be any better than existing testing methods. If I wanted to know this I
would be more inclined to give a group of people a ton of different types of tests and then watch their
career and decide which of the tests more closely correlated with what I was seeking then I could narrow
it down to a combination of traits for instance maybe the results would be high IQ, high creativity, and
high level of willpower or some other combination of 3 or 4 attributes then you could test for only those
3-4 attributes instead of dozen of attributes. If you didn't want to wait, you could instead give the same
battery of tests to the people in your company that you considered most successful and see if there are
any patterns.
What a strange test.
The only way to pass is not to take it.
National security is worrying about terrorists in countries 7000 miles away across the ocean but leaving the southern gate wide open.
1) Identify the smart ones
2) "Eliminate" the smart ones
3) Sheeple are easier to control
4) Profit!
This is a step along the road towards the Morlocks and Eloi of H. G. Wells "The Time Machine".
While this isn't as bad as "Gattaca" or "Brave New World" with their emphasis on eugenics; it's definitely not good for the concentration of wealth, power and yes, intelligence. When people can be ACCURATELY rated in terms of all their various intellectual abilities (as they already are in Chess ability) it will mean a further stratification of society and concentration of advantages.
While this has always being going on throughout history (and pre-history) if they really apply scientific techniques it could dramatically enhance its predictive power.
Maybe, eventually, humanity will start to diverge into multiple species. :(
We are here because you are looking for the best of the best of the best, sir!
If this would be used to determine if someone is smart enough to see though their BS and could perhaps be a problem in the future if they obtain enough power.
they can test my tool with a subject
YeeeHaaaa.
DHS's contractor IS butt fucked ! Plus IPM Dead In The Water and flooding mid-ships.
This means that the newest and pending U.S. "Ambassadors" are BUTT FUCKED; i.e. No security clearances !
So, what will the Newest of the stale US AmbASSadors, the limp whinny, to ... Gulp ... Russia do in Moscow !
Not credit card ! Putin cut off Mastercard and Visa !
Still got to walk the OSHA line on "clock-in" "clock-out" rules, even in his Hotel room "State Department Suite" in Moscow.
Talk about a Prisoner of Zelda ... YeeeeeHaaaaa.
He can't even leave the Hotel to walk one block to the McDonald's to order a Big Mac with his bum credit card ... and NO
Rubles either !
YeeeeHaaaa !
Given the oxymoronic nature of "national intelligence", one can only wonder if they're looking for the smart people to put them on watchlists early.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
What makes you so sure that they want to hire you?
That's assuming any of these morons actually have the faculties to understand actual intelligence and the factors that go into is measurement.
Otherwise, it'll wind up some stupid "if-then" matrix that tells you jack and shit about actual intelligence.
But all these dipshits will be dancing around going "I finded a smart goy! YAY ME!"
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Too often I see stupid mistakes (that are known mistakes) implemented because someone higher in the hierarchy or with more social clout pushed for it.
We don't follow the "best" idea. We don't follow the "smartest" people.
We do stupid things over and over and over because we are still social animals.
Even if they could find the 10 smartest people in the nation, they would still tell them to implement the same, stupid "solutions". And if those 10 people argued against the stupidity ... well then ... the test must be flawed. Those could not be the smartest.
Now find me people who:
a. will agree with me
b. will agree on who the scapegoat is for when it fails
c. will not argue with me
d. we will call those people the "smartest" ones
Anyone smarter than the mediocre average of government intelligence that is not working within the government must be found, since they are a potential risk. Any potential risk should be eliminated or assimilated.
The only reason the government would want to know who the smartest people are is so they know who to add to their terror watch list (assuming they aren't part of The Party).
"the protection and preservation of existing power inequalities"
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
means "compliant" and "loyal". Of course, "smart" in any context is nothing more than a measure of conformity to a particular culture's belief structure. Even here.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
They want to make sure their people will not crack once they find out they're abusing everything this entire nation was/is built on.
This project is Snowden prevention.
to them. If they can detect the sort of brain activity that correlates with intelligence, certainly this can be expanded to other brain activity. Throw a Union Jack on their screens and see how they respond. Boom, state loyalty tester. Throw two naked guys on their screen, boom, sexual orientation test. Throw scenes of snipers shooting civilians, boom, black ops aptitude test.
The cover story, as usual, doesn't matter.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
#27, lack of dates
Table-ized A.I.
I wouldn't mind being a test subject if they if they did have a tool.
They don't take stutterers.
JK. One of the smartest persons I know stuttered.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
The smartest ones are those who don't reveal their true intelligence to the security agencies.
Snowden was smarter than everyone around him. Just saying.
Too many decent potential scientists and engineers are following the money and playing complicated accounting tricks on others similarly wasted in positions where they add no value to society.
Take a look at the Enron debacle for a well documented situation. Plenty of very intelligent hard working people were doing nothing but creating smokescreens for scams. Don't misunderstand or turn me into a strawman - accounts and finance people have an important role in society but highly creative ones building complicated artifices designed to mislead (or HFT people who do it via man in the middle attack) are a drain on society and a waste of potential talent. Pick just about anything else in society and they'd contribute better there.
So while it's very attractive for the bright to become tricksters and while the media portrays scientists and engineers in a very negative light we're only going to get the people who are driven or import people from other places where they don't mock scientists.
...Postnatal-Eugenics
What are they gonna do once they have the smartest people? huh? Think about that :S
committed suicide realizing the futility of modern existance. Or: switched off their brains either through force of will or substance abuse in order to better conform to society's expectations and be able to hold that crappy 9-5 they needed to actually eat.
While I'm sure there are plenty who succeed, if you're not a big arrogant or sociopathic it doesn't seem likely you'll make it far in this world. Well, unless you've got a sociopath 'managing' you.
I know some very "intelligent" people who do nothing but use their cognative resoning to justify the stupidist crap ever. Then I have met people of average inteilgence who have accomplished quite a lot. It seems drive is more valuable but those who have a natural gift could do well it they can avoid traps along the way. Ever meet a trader some of the smartest dumb people ever.
Or, if you capture a group of hostiles, then instead of using "enhanced interrogation techniques" on them in far-off lands to find out who was the brains of the operation, you can use a non-evasive analysis to, well, you catch my drift.
Do you want to play a game? :)
And idiot brains taste terrible. Brains of politicians are unedible. More's the pity, but it does explain a lot.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Because that's how you get Gattaca.
They want the smartest and fastest and strongest ...
They should look at that guy in the White House, the epitome of "smart", "fast" and "strong"
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Acronyms Can Really be Obnoxious Names, You Mean?
Program Intellivision!
What's the best way to test a group of peoples...
Whoever has the highest percentage of East Asian admixture..
these people.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If you cut through the pretty talk, they are looking for sociopathy indicators: people who are willing to disregard the costs of means necessary to achieve some ends, and particularly their own ends and the ends they are told to believe in. People who never ask themselves "can this be worth it?" or "isn't that self-defeating?". People without empathy or a conscience of their own. People fit to serve as KZ guards.
I think that, indeed, there are some neurophysiological indicators of primordial sociopathy. But a lot of sociopathy can be secured by group belief systems and dynamics.
So the search for the merciless indoctrinable übermensch is not really much of a necessity. In fact, the U.S. is doing pretty well working with their mostly European breeds.
They already got it. It's built into the militaries interferometers and they call it remote neural monitoring. They can tell anything they want about the persons brain. I think this is a cover story meant to lead up to throw off the public from being able to trace whether they already possess this technology or not. So people will reference this article and go, "nope, they just started development on it" like the 2008 articles on "synthetic telepathy" for a 30 year old technology.
Learn the truth here : click for patents, article, and whistleblower interviews.
this brain has to function? I mean specifically, does the test account for that brain being surrounded by and overseen by clueless administrators throwing obstacles in that brains path at every turn?
Sounds like they want to know who to fear. Or at least who they should target to get out of the gene pool
and laziness/addicting personality/insane/etc.
Wonder if CIA will now end up with potential Einsteins who just play video games all day (although probably play them REALLY well)?
Then you eliminate them
That the intelligence community is looking to the very people they spy on for a tool to tell them who is the smartest of them all. If the intelligence community doesn't trust it's own citizenship enough to not spy on them then they clearly are doomed with this tax dollar venture.
PS. I want my tax money back since you people can't trust me as a citizen of this country. I see no reason to give money to people who don't trust me in the first place. *wishful thinking, I know*
If they want to know who's the smartest of them all, then I suggest the tool they should use is mirror mirror on the wall.
Employ them to serve the richest.
But if they agreed to work for the government they wouldn't be the smartest ...
Can be easily proved statistically.
Dilbert
Have gnu, will travel.
... not taking the test.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
First scratch off all the members of Mensa.
The really smart people wouldn't join in order to keep their sanity.
Really smart ones who did join, perhaps to hide from the NSA, would be driven batshit crazy by the other members and incompetence of the organization.
Gas chamber (based on past experience).
Have gnu, will travel.
I'll gladly pay you for 2 hamburgers tomorrow for one hamburger today. -Wimpy on Popeye 1970.
Unfortunately for me, I was offered this sort of deal by my boss. However, my boss fired me when I came around to collect. This sort of culture exists on Wall Street. Lots of people dangle carrots in front of you, but when it comes time to collect, all promises are forgotten. I remember a friend who worked for Shersom-Lerhman Brothers in the 1989. Her boss got a big bonus for his previous years "work", and she was shorted her salary on the last two weeks on the job just before bankruptcy.
Subject is an aluminum wire golf ball washer
Those who are very smart understand the danger in being recognized by those that are not.
Wouldn't they realize that humanity would do better if we could "all just get along", that is, govern certain aspects of our global-impacting activity at the global level, based on rationally arrived-at policies, and also define and enforce human and ecosystem rights at the global human level.
That kind of enlightened, future-projecting realization and viewpoint would not be consistent with working for a US intelligence agency.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
After all, once you can identify a priori who the smart people are, you can make sure that they are in their proper place from an early age. What a brave, new world that would be.
"Alpha children wear grey They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfuly glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I'm so glad I'm a Beta."
damn smart, learned to read at the age of 3, was responsible for major news and info gathering protocols, etc., and this effing gov't hounded him to death.
Jeremy Hammond is another superior technoid, and he's in jail. John Kiriakou, not sure about his tech skills, but he is certainly an intelligent and honorable man, and he's in jail.
Any questions?
If you are too smart you can't work as a field agent for most government investigative organizations. They do want analysts to be smart. But I am thinking this test, if developed, would be used for something other than finding out who is the smartest but instead, whose brain will learn things quickly and whose brain will absorb and hold information. Or maybe who the sociopaths are so they can be recruited into service for the government.
Mensa would love a tool like this!
Until we understand biological intelligence, until we understand how the brain works, until then, and only then will someone be able to create artificial intelligence.
The smartest person for a task varies greatly depending on the task. Let's say the task is acquiring information and the two candidates are a typical slashdot user guy who played quarterback for his high school football team. If the information is located on a malfunctioning computer, the slashdot user is almost certainly the smarter of the two. But if the information is in the mind of an attractive woman, the person who gets the better outcome is probably going to be the quarterback.
"When people can be ACCURATELY rated in terms of all their various intellectual abilities (as they already are in Chess ability)" - by wisebabo (638845) on Thursday August 07, 2014 @12:58AM (#47620159)
I told my 2 tenants (who also play) I use it as a gauge of a man's intelligence (assuming he's played a few hundred to 1,000's of times @ least, that is, as the 1 caveat - to eliminate the advantage of experience/wisdom gained etc. - et al): Turns out, BOTH of them can play (very well in fact)...
Years ago, I played 1 tenant circa 2004-2008 many, Many, MANY 1,000's of times (even in downpouring summer rains while we played outside &, lol, yes - we were THAT "into it").
HE "upped my game", massively in fact.
That also came in handy with a tenant from a 2 yrs. back in fact (# 3 in NY State @ the collegiate level in fact): I could play him DEAD UP EVEN, game-for-game, over a dozen or so we played!
(However, he was only a temporary tenant: Why? Well - I felt for him as a person since he was a chemistry major @ a SUNY college, & just couldn't afford to finish his 4th yr., not right off @ least, even with scholarships & tuition aid - so he lived here for 3 months just to go to tractor trailer school, to get a license in the "B" range iirc, & he was already certified to drive public busses, but wanted the monies from driving rigs, so he could save for finishing up his B.S. in Chemistry - ordinarily I don't WANT short-term tenants like that, but in his case, I made an exception... he was exceptional is why).
Anyhow - Lately now, I am playing my 2 tenants lately who both told me they LOVED chess (have their own "snazzy ivory boards" & what-not).
So far, I have 1 of them by dozens of games (but he does, as I say often getting lucky winning to him, "pulls a rabbit out of his ass" now & then, & is IMPROVING, game-by-game... I think it's mostly "rust" on his end, & that he will end up the BEST of us in fact).
The other guy? He's sharp as a tack too... & he's a gamer:
They HATE to lose - & kept *trying* to play me over & over 3x in a row, & then 3x in a row again later. He's a real competitor, that HATES to lose... you can see/feel it. Even my other tenant agrees. It's palpable.
So far, That gamer 2nd tenant's got the other 1st tenant I noted by a a 3/2 win-to-lose ratio so far AND the former player thinks he's my superior in strategy too... he very well MAY be - I'm no 'great player' imo. I use 4-5 fundamentals, & play by the "seat of my pants" with no 'huge' 5 moves ahead plans etc. really.
However: The numbers don't "bear that out", since I am "up" on him, 4 games to 2, so far... thus, I told them BOTH to "argue with the numbers" (lol, I use that here a lot also, as there IS no arguing with them).
I'm no genius either, according to IQ tests I've taken. I 'bat' around a 130-135 score on them @ best/most usually, too. Thus, I also do NOT think IQ tests tell the "whole story" on things - a LOT of it is DRIVE & DETERMINATION as well as commitment to know/learn more, constantly.
That, imo, makes ALL the difference & is what "splits hairs" as far as intellectual abilities. I.E.-> You can have all the "native in-built brainpower" in the world, but *IF* you aren't willing to exercise & develop it, plus working to fill your mind with new data to literally "relationally" work with (ala db engines)? It's wasted...
APK
P.S.=> I then BEAT THEM BOTH @ once, allowing the 2nd 'better' tenant to play & the other tenant to 'advise' via the peanut-gallery on each move they made... I then "pulled a rabbit outta my ass" as I called it, & snuck in a win on that one too (lucky only really, & they're getting SO good @ it, & getting MY game down, it won't be long until they start putting out more wins vs. myself I think)... apk