Slashdot Mirror
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.
What's 'national security'? I mean, is there a rigorous definition of it?
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.
National security is worrying about terrorists in countries 7000 miles away across the ocean but leaving the southern gate wide open.
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. :(
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
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
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.
The smartest ones are those who don't reveal their true intelligence to the security agencies.
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.
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.