US Intelligence Wants Tools To Tell: Who's the Smartest of Them All? 162
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.
not again! (Score:1)
They want the smartest and fastest and strongest - where are you Jason Bourne?
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They don't need to be smarter, they just need to stop f*cking up and come to the realization that wiping their A$$ with the constitution erodes the foundation the US was built upon. Lots changed when they croaked Kennedy, been a downhill run for a while now.
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I killed Kennedy. I am the dominant lifeform. I rule u all and Im very viscious as u can proably tell. Here I come.
But you fail sixth grade English.
No GED for you, no World Domination.
Back you go!
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They gotta narrow down the choices of who to inject the super soldier serum into, ya know. Save the taxpayer's money.
They ain't gonna find him on Capitol Hill, that's for sure.
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Smart ones? I think either those that are smart or have any foresight are the ones building an exit strategy to live in a country that has half a chance at democracy. But those would likely be off the list of being hired so looks like such a fishing expedition will likely be fruitless for them, but hey it's just another stab at tax payer money. Other side of the coin would be the smart ones might be dangerous, but only half as dangerous and the honest and smart ones.
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make a list of everyone you know.
now we have a list of people smarter than you.
... and yet ... (Score:1)
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"
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He probably works in finance now.
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They want the smartest and fastest and strongest - where are you Jason Bourne?
More than likely they want to determine who is the smartest person (leader) in a group of people so they can imprison or kill them because dumb people are easier to control. Once they turn the population in unquestioningly obedient sheeple they can cause Idiocracy to happen even faster.
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More than likely they want to determine who is the smartest person (leader) in a group of people so they can imprison or kill them because dumb people are easier to control.
Besides: learning ability is not necessarily a great predictor of performance. Maybe there are emotional, or just plain -- ahem -- willingness issues.
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seriously, the only way to get a definitive answer to the question "who is the smartest person in the room" is to be the one person to bring in a machine gun.
Dumb question (Score:4, Interesting)
What's 'national security'? I mean, is there a rigorous definition of it?
Dumb question (Score:2, Insightful)
National security is worrying about terrorists in countries 7000 miles away across the ocean but leaving the southern gate wide open.
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What's 'national security'? I mean, is there a rigorous definition of it?
Of course there is!
Telling you what it is would be gravely harmful to a variety of force protection, vital infrastructure, and national security interests that are too sensitive to actually describe, so the definition, the OLC memos interpreting the application of the definition, the existence/nonexistence and/or contents of the signing statement outlining the executive branch interpretation of the definition, any DoD, Intelligence Community, or Law Enforcement operational policies from which the definiti
Closest approximation I can think of: (Score:5, Insightful)
"the protection and preservation of existing power inequalities"
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Simple: It means "We are much more powerful and much less moral than you, so you better shut up NOW!"
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What's 'national security'? I mean, is there a rigorous definition of it?
When you listen to public officials talk, they never talk about defending our lives or our freedoms, but always about defending our "national interests".
And of course, that means whatever policymakers and their pwners want it to mean. If they think bombing some peasants halfway around the world will help keep toilet paper affordable, it's a national security issue.
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What's 'national security'? I mean, is there a rigorous definition of it?
Yes. National security is defined by the US government as its ability to prevent US citizen's from learning what it is up to.
It's called a "test" (Score:1)
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.
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"Smart", as GCHQ would have it, (Score:2)
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.
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Einstein had trouble with basic math as a child. His teachers thought he was an idiot. You have to wonder how many "smartest" never happened because they got beat up on the schoolyard and gave up on their dreams.
You mean... (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
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Einstein had trouble with basic math as a child. His teachers thought he was an idiot. You have to wonder how many "smartest" never happened because they got beat up on the schoolyard and gave up on their dreams.
I thought getting beat up on the schoolyard is what makes them pursue their dreams.
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I thought getting beat up on the schoolyard is what makes them pursue their dreams.
It's also the reason that our... er... their dreams so often include world domination.
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Einstein had trouble with basic math as a child.
That's sort of an urban myth. He did have a lot of problems with the math particularly for General Relativity compared to good mathematicians (like his friend Marcel Grossmann). David Hilbert actually published a complete GR framework shortly after conversing with Einstein about his ongoing work, then retracted the publication. Because the important achievement was not going through with the math, but rather knowing which postulates and invariants the math needed to fit.
It is popular to cite Einstein's a
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What makes them think this is even possible? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Gives, in a sense.
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There are dozens of attributes that I missed and many overlap (like resourcefulness and certain types of intelligence).
I wasn't trying to be all inclusive. I think you could probably come up with 50 or more tests of random traits and attributes.
Many like if you tested for eye color or hair color probably won't have any correlation at all. The point is to have enough
tests that then you can look at the good candidates and see where they all clump then you could eliminate all the useless
tests and only keep t
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So the real question who is the smartest at what? The what being the particular goals or problems you wish resolved. So an idiot savant is the ideal solution as long as the savant skill is the skill you require to solve the problem. IQ ideally measure learning ability across a range of mental skills, now if that is the solution you are looking for fine, however if it is not then you are wasting your time. The is also desire, mental feedback, those good brain chemicals that will promote focus upon a particu
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âoeSuch a predictive capability would allow organizations to determine in advance who is most likely to be able to learn and master complex skills and accomplish tasks in real-world environments that are important for the organizationâ(TM)s mission and success, thereby increasing return on investment for training activities and optimizing matching of personnel to tasks/environments.
This sounds a lot like Gattaca, but with brain scans instead of genetic scans.
I think it is the opposite. (Score:3)
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 m
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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
If you pick your "benchmark group" well enough and find people with similiar brainwaves/traits then this still solves their problem nicely.
You might not have actually picked the "smartest" people but you picked the people that are most likely to do what you want and
succeed where you want them to succeed so I don't see this as being a problem if you can really predict future performance.
It might actually be easier to detect "people who are good at following orders" than it is to detect "people who are smart"
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Only if you redefine the "problem" to be "find people like these people".
And that's been solved for hundreds of years. Just look at the CxO's and Boards of Directors for the major corporations.
The problem is that these are the worst people for "national defense". Look at their track record.
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Only if you redefine the "problem" to be "find people like these people".
But that's exactly what they're doing. The only way they are going to be able to "see" intelligence with a brainwave scan
is to look at people that they "think" are intelligent and compare other people to that group.
Whether that means more brain activity, less brain activity, certain areas active, etc... that's the best they can do as
there is no truly objective measure of intelligence. Intelligence is an abstract concept that we attempt to judge based
on tests and situations and not only varies from person
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"The true test of another man's intelligence is how much he agrees with you"
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Re:What makes them think this is even possible? (Score:4, Funny)
This test was devised decades ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org]
Simply give any potential employees the option of a marshmallow now or waiting a period of time to receive two marshmallows. At the very least we should use this procedure to test our police force for poor impulse control.
It can even be applied to dating. On the first date I offer a marshmallow or if they have the willpower to not eat the marshmallow the promise of sex. So far it's managed to flawlessly protect me from a number of impulsive women.
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I'd propose option (c), no marshmallows - at all; I really dislike marshmallows.
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Sex it is then
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You're doing it wrong. If you do it right, the response from impulsive women will be to "prove" that they can eat the marshmallow AND have sex with you.
Also the marshmallow test is pretty flawed when used with anyone who has experience. Doesn't matter how much impulse control you
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"You're doing it wrong. If you do it right, the response from impulsive women will be to "prove" that they can eat the marshmallow AND have sex with you."
That assumes you're still young enough that random sex from impulsive women is your goal.
"Also the marshmallow test is pretty flawed when used with anyone who has experience. Doesn't matter how much impulse control you have, if promises of delayed gratification have in the past been consistently broken and led to no gratification."
That's actually just what
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The new advanced brain scanner idea allows a new group to enjoy new fresh funding too.
You can wait for the right grant to show up or create the tech than induces new funding
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In the sense that they've not had a budget request for this type of project before and have demonstrated considerable creativity in coming up with this potentially-everlasting think-of-the-kids style project? Did I win?
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"The best of the best of the best! Sir!"
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I worked with a guy who as a recent high school graduate (mid seventy's) was recruited by the DoD to work on ballistic missile systems. He was a southern redneck hot rodder who looked like a Mafioso enforcer. After showing too much intuition about certain systems he was let go. The man was a mechanical genius and a wiz with a soldering station (he brought his own to work).
His family lived in and managed a small trailer park and he was not a stellar student, how did they find him? I was offered (but declin
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Indeed - one use of IQ tests - demoralize a section of society in to accepting whatever BS no-one else will accept.
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I think this is exactly what is going on. It's the reason that some people who aren't suppose to succeed in college still do.
Over the years our brains have come up with hundreds of survival strategies and hundreds of different types of intelligence.
It doesn't really matter which one we use as long as we get to the next generation. If we make it to the next generation then
we select for whatever intelligence got us there.
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Divide and conqure (Score:1)
1) Identify the smart ones
2) "Eliminate" the smart ones
3) Sheeple are easier to control
4) Profit!
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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.
Mod parent up. (Score:3)
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).
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Right. The Shoe Bomber. The Times Square propane bombers. The gentleman with the explosive underwear.
Top flight people, all.
Uh oh, this isn't good (if it works) (Score:3)
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. :(
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Well, not really. See, the elite are not actually going to use those tests on themselves or their offspring so there are always going to be incompetent cretins put in charge of things because being born into privilege is divorced from any natural ability. They're not interested in making themselves better, only richer.
What this is really about is that they need an easy way to identify skilled workers. There is not going to be any state education so they need to be able to identify potential candidates from
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That's ridiculous. We already lived through centuries of society where it was easy to measure physical strength when physical strength was a strong indicator of work success. This did not lead to the stratification of the physically weak from the physically strong.
The Best of the Best of the Best (Score:1)
relevant to national security? (Score:3)
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.
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It's what they did with Tor, isn't it? Separate the sheep from the goats (i.e. those who have no interest in hiding anything vs. those who do) and watch the hell out of the sheep?
The sheep are more responsive to mass propaganda. There's no need to watch them until they prove themselves goats.
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Smart people can be guided into good front companies that feel private sector but get 100% gov contracts.
Smart people can be guided away from eg open source crypto projects before they add large amounts of high quality code for free and tell the world.
Smart people can be guided to open source projects that create large amounts of quality GUI code, games, charity if they want to give "back" to projects.
Its more that a gov wants
Idiots (Score:2)
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!"
Doesn't mean what is measured won't be useful (Score:2)
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.
Profilers? (Score:1)
#27, lack of dates
The smartest ones? (Score:3, Funny)
The smartest ones are those who don't reveal their true intelligence to the security agencies.
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There are two rules for succes:
1) Never reveal everything you know.
Smart doesn't matter, it's what you do with it (Score:3)
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.
Do you want to play a game? (Score:1)
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That's easy - brains of smart people taste better. (Score:2)
ACRONYM? (Score:1)
Probably hoping to compete with (Score:2)
these people [wikipedia.org].
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Wish I had mod points because that is interesting.
Will the test include the environment in which (Score:2)
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?
Oblig. (Score:2)
Dilbert [dilbert.com]
The smartest are the ones ... (Score:2)
... not taking the test.
I'll gladly pay you for 2 hamburgers tomorrow for (Score:1)
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
Why would the smartest be nationalistic? (Score:2)
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.
I'm sure this is leading somewhere good. (Score:2)
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
Well, Aaron Swartz was pretty . . . . (Score:2)
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?
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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.
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Gas chamber (based on past experience).
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But if they agreed to work for the government they wouldn't be the smartest ...