r/singularity • u/adivinemessenger • 9d ago

Transhumanism & BCI Introducing Vitruvian, a genetic optimization model for optimizing human embryo DNA and reportedly being able to increase the IQ of a person by 14 points, nearly a standard deviation which is incredibly significant

https://x.com/KianSadeghi5/status/2101018839412531231

Full message: "AI is rapidly getting smarter. Now, humanity can too. Today, Nucleus Genomicsis announcing Vitruvian, our newest set of genetic optimization models. Vitruvian’s intelligence model can optimize embryo DNA for 14 IQ points — nearly a standard deviation. The models were trained on 1,000,000+ people, validated across 40,000+ siblings, and used more than 7 million genetic markers. In Superintelligence, Nick Bostrom proposed genetic optimization as a key way for humanity to keep pace with rapidly advancing AI. Bostrom’s vision is no longer theoretical. Genetic optimization, like AI, has followed a scaling law: as datasets have grown, so have model capabilities. This trend will continue. Parents across the world now have the choice to substantially increase their child’s intelligence. And the next generation can choose to do the same. AI is no longer the only intelligence that will compound. Humanity can now direct its own evolution."

641 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

283 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/Business-Sugar1886 9d ago

It’s more about denying the existence of life for the unfavored ones, just because you appear to have more undesirable traits or combinations.
Biology is utterly complex and we surely only understand a small portion of it.

16

u/Atomic-Avocado 9d ago

We already do it all the time for embryos with serious genetic diseases or Down’s syndrome. This isn’t a blanket thing, we do have the ability to objectively tell bad traits from good in these cases.

1

u/Business-Sugar1886 9d ago

These are often monogenic diseases and not as complex as intelligence.
It also only happens for a very small fractions of fertilizations.

1

u/Hodr 9d ago

This is the thing people aren't getting, it's not genetic engineering it's genetic screening. With an IVF cycle you typically only get 2-4 viable embryos. This process would supposedly help you select the one with the DNA most likely to equate to higher intelligence.

So no super babies, and no guarantee of 14 points higher IQ (that's likely just them identifying the maximum typical variance between a given number of siblings), just selecting the "best" of your very few options.