The mistake of conflating intelligence and power

dwarkesh.com · 504 words · saved by 4 readers

f this is your definition of intelligence is the ability to achieve your goals across a wide variety of domains, then Stalin was the most intelligent person who ever lived.

I had an interesting discussion recently. Someone asked me, what is intelligence? I said, the ability to achieve your goals across a wide range of domains. Okay, he says, then by that definition isn’t Donald Trump the intelligent person in the world, followed in quick succession by Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin? To be clear, these people are obviously very competent and clever. But when you think of ASI, you don’t think of Trump, but more so. The person who kept pressing this question was correctly pointing out that I basically defined intelligence as power. And by this definition, Stalin…

The mistake of conflating intelligence and power

saved by

related reading