A Nautilus essay argues stupidity scales with intelligence in humans and AI
examachine · x · 2026-07-28
A Nautilus essay by David C. Krakauer argues that stupidity is not the opposite of intelligence, but its shadow.
Main thesis
- The more intelligence a system has, the more spectacularly wrong it can go.
- Humans can achieve extraordinary technical feats, yet still produce conspiracy theories, anti-scientific movements, and institutional self-destruction at civilizational scale.
- The essay frames stupidity as a sophisticated behavior that emerges from language, abstraction, technology, institutions, and ideology.
Why it’s relevant to AI
The piece explicitly connects this idea to research on intelligence, AI, animal cognition, and collective problem-solving, suggesting that intelligence research often overlooks how systems fail when they are highly capable.
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