AI Designer Babies for 14-Point IQ Boost. By ZeroHedge.

A startup backed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund says its latest model can sort IVF embryos by intelligence, with 14 IQ points between the top and bottom of a batch of ten. …

Vitruvian doesn’t edit DNA. It scores the embryos an IVF cycle has already produced, so parents can choose which one to implant. Besides intelligence, Nucleus has pitched comparisons of each embryo’s height, eye and hair color, and risk of breast cancer, type 2 diabetes and autism.

According to the company’s whitepaper, the expected gap between the highest- and lowest-scoring embryo in a batch of ten is 14.3 IQ points; with five embryos, it’s 10.8. Choosing the top embryo instead of an average one is worth half that spread, the whitepaper says: about 7 points with ten embryos, and about 5 with five.

Kian Sadeghi of Nucleus Genomics, on their Vitruvian program:

Vitruvian’s intelligence model can optimize embryo DNA for 14 IQ points — nearly a standard deviation. …

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. …

Getting better:

The models were trained on 1,000,000+ people, validated across 40,000+ siblings, and used more than 7 million genetic markers.

Genetic optimization, like AI, has followed a scaling law: as datasets have grown, so have model capabilities. This trend will continue.

14 IQ points is equal to the decrease in the average western IQ since it peaked in 1880 (after allowing for the Flynn effect, an artifact due to increased familiarity with test taking).

Prediction: The ruling class will tut-tut and say this is terrible and doesn’t work, while eagerly partaking in the new tech to the max.

hat-tip Phil C.