Friday, September 08, 2017

Hard to communicate accross IQ gap

Neuroskeptic says this is an oversimplification:
Let’s say high IQ is a blessing which comes with a terrible price. And each and every person with reading east from 135 has paid that price.

HIgh IQ persons usually have also extremely vivid and wide spectrum of emotions and emotional life, and when they are happy, they are in rapture, and when they are unhappy, it is sheer emotional hell. The IQ is a great enabler, and it unfortunately also enables to experience unhappiness in much deeper and profound way than anyone with mediocre IQ would.

The concept of communication range was established by Leta Hollingworth. It is +/- 2 standard deviations (roughly 30 points) up or down on one’s own IQ. It denotes the range where meaningful interaction (communication, discussion, conversation and socializing) is possible. If the IQ difference between two persons is more than 30 points, the communication breaks up. The higher IQ person will look like an incomprehensible nerd and the lower IQ as a moronic dullard – and they will not find anything common.
There do not seem to be any hard studies proving this, but there is some truth to it.

I can talk to a small child that might have 80 less IQ points, but I do not attempt to have an intelligent conversation. If I attempt an intelligent conversation with an adult with 30 less IQ points, then inevitably he or she will make some completely false inference from something I said, and I have to spend most of my time explaining what I think should be obvious to a 10-year-old, and it seems unlikely that the person is getting anything else right either.

At the other end, dumb ppl normally do not realize how much smarter other ppl are.

As an example, look at how much time President Trump has to spend explaining points when ppl misquote or misinterpret him. It is as if he is 30 IQ points smarter than anyone at CNN or the NY Times. It is hard to believe everyone in the news media is really that stupid. Maybe they were not always that stupid, but learned to dumb down in order to relate to their low IQ viewers and readers.

The Less Wrong community is convinced that in a couple of decades, AI super-intelligent robots will pass up human intelligence by 30 IQ points or so, and thus we could lose our ability to communicate effectively with them. They do not want to slow down AI research, so they want us humans to up our game, and learn to behave more logically so that we can coexist with the super-intelligent robots.

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