The Power Of Intelligence

The following is copied from Wiki Interview With Eliezer/Autonomous Intelligence:

Please tell me about the "power of intelligence" and its relevance to our world.

Intelligence is the main cause in how well one may affect reality. Our modern world of cultural values, scientific knowledge, and technology, has been created by the power of the differential between the intelligence of homo sapiens sapiens and the intelligence of great apes. As intelligence improves, the problems that are solvable and the quality of solutions that are accessible will also improve. Human knowledge and technology, which have been slowly self-improving for nearly ten thousand years, are bounded by human General Intelligence. However, human intelligence is not a limit on what’s possible. Within the first-half of the 21st century, technology that enhances General Intelligence will likely be developed, creating intelligence with a greater ability to develop technology that further enhances General Intelligence. This will in turn wlead to a positive feedback effect, which has never before existed, that will have quite unprecedented implications.