As AI is so topical just now, here is a neat little framework for understanding what intelligence is and how it works.

Your IQ is best thought of as your compound rate.

Divide your IQ by 1,000 and +1

eg 135 IQ = (135 / 1,000) + 1 = 1.35 compound rate.

Then compound to n events to get something analogous to “ability”.

eg 5 events = 1.35^5 = 4.48

10 events = 1.35^10 = 20.11

15 events = 1.35^15 = 90.16

High IQ people compound their learning faster than regular people.

But over shorter time periods you find that simply practice a lot or making a lot of attempts will dominate ability distributions.

Practice dominates over short timelines.

120 IQ = 1.12^10 = 3.10

180 IQ = 1.18^5 = 2.28

But after a large number of attempts smarter people can attain otherwise unassailable competence.

Intelligence dominates over longer timeframe.

120 IQ = 1.12^50 = 289

180 IQ = 1.18^50 = 3,700

So teach your kids that being smart is not enough. You have to be persistent too. Keep going, don’t give up. Trust this math. Plot the curve, follow your trend.

The world has no shortage of smart people who lack focus and spend their whole lives operating at average competence, because their activity completion is slow or truncated.

This is an important concept for early teenagers to understand.

It’s also a neat little framework for understanding the trajectory of AI, both in first order (training) and second order (deployment).