The Evolution of IQ Tests

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IQ scores going up three points every 10 years for almost a century. Even the famous Flynn effect is apparently starting to flatten out. We're discovering all kinds of things that we thought were very sophisticated, turn it to be very mechanical,. like playing chess or now painting a picture. Creativity is actually a very mechanical thing. It's not this highly supernatural thing. It’s a mechanical process that you can put into dumb things. That would be some data that we could start to work with. If they had a G score, that would be interesting.

On his 68th birthday, Kevin Kelly began to write down for his young adult children some things he had learned about life that he wished he had known earlier. To his surprise, Kelly had more to say than he thought, and kept adding to the advice over the years, compiling a life’s wisdom into the pages of his book: Excellent Advice for Living.

Shermer and Kelly discuss: protopian progress • ChatGPT • artificial intelligence; an existential threat? • evolution • cultural progress • self-driving cars • innovation • social media • putting an end to war • compound interest and the long term effect of small changes • why you don’t want to be a billionaire • beliefs and reason • setting unreasonable goals • persistence as key to success • probabilities and statistics, not algebra and calculus • investing: buy and hold • how to fully become yourself.

Kevin Kelly helped launch and edit Wired magazine. He has written for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, among many other publications. His previous books include What Technology Wants, and The Inevitable, a New York Times bestseller. He is known for his technological optimism. Currently he is a Senior Maverick at Wired and lives in Pacifica, California.