“Intelligence Is Not Magic, But Your Threshold For ‘Magic’ Is Pretty Low” by Expertium
Jun 17, 2025•3 min
Listen to this episode in Metacast mobile app
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more
Episode description
A while ago I saw a person in the comments on comments to Scott Alexander's blog arguing that a superintelligent AI would not be able to do anything too weird and that "intelligence is not magic", hence it's Business As Usual.
Of course, in a purely technical sense, he's right. No matter how intelligent you are, you cannot override fundamental laws of physics. But people (myself included) have a fairly low threshold for what counts as "magic," to the point where other humans can surpass that threshold.
Example 1: Trevor Rainbolt. There is an 8-minute-long video where he does seemingly impossible things, such as correctly guessing that a photo of nothing but literal blue sky was taken in Indonesia or guessing Jordan based only on pavement. He can also correctly identify the country after looking at a photo for 0.1 seconds.
Example 2: Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. He ran [...]
---
First published:
June 15th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FBvWM5HgSWwJa5xHc/intelligence-is-not-magic-but-your-threshold-for-magic-is
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
Of course, in a purely technical sense, he's right. No matter how intelligent you are, you cannot override fundamental laws of physics. But people (myself included) have a fairly low threshold for what counts as "magic," to the point where other humans can surpass that threshold.
Example 1: Trevor Rainbolt. There is an 8-minute-long video where he does seemingly impossible things, such as correctly guessing that a photo of nothing but literal blue sky was taken in Indonesia or guessing Jordan based only on pavement. He can also correctly identify the country after looking at a photo for 0.1 seconds.
Example 2: Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. He ran [...]
---
First published:
June 15th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FBvWM5HgSWwJa5xHc/intelligence-is-not-magic-but-your-threshold-for-magic-is
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android