Doesn't vary that widely in humans? Do you have a source for that?

Even if you take IQ, a 2-sigma event on that distribution is 'only' around 130. A 130 outpaces a 100, sure, but it's hardly full on dominance in most tasks.

Certainly much less powerful than just having rich or pushy parents.

> The CV of e.g. IQ is only 15%. That's in line with other 'natural' attributes of humans, but not compared to something like family wealth or background. From a quick Google, wealth is 700% in the US? Income also same OOM.

I'm generally suspicious of IQ but still - 2 standard deviations above average would include about 2.5% of the population. Hassabis is in a significantly more exclusive slice.

His parents weren't particularly wealthy. More likely: he is exceptionally intelligent, hardworking, visionary, and grew up in an environment which fostered those attributes in a precocious child.

all being equal, a 130 will completely trounce a 100 on almost every mental task. what are you talking about? do you honestly think otherwise?

They might 'win' reliably, but I don't believe the margin on outcome itself to be that great.

Intelligence varies incredibly wildly in humans. So much so I think IQ might be a logarithmic scale.

The CV of e.g. IQ is only 15%. That's in line with other 'natural' attributes of humans, but not compared to something like family wealth or background. From a quick Google, wealth is 700% in the US? Income also same OOM.

I worked in a retail PC sales and repair store and the gulf between the stupidest and smartest customers was enormous.

I think you've just got perceptual tuning for the human to human context. It's like how human faces that are 5% different can be very obvious to us, but it's much harder to tell (for example) two cats apart at the same difference level. All of your adaptive pressures are pulling in that direction.

But at a system-scale view of intelligence, humans are squashed together and it plays a pretty small role on outcomes. You should much prefer being rich than smart if your goal is 'success' by most metrics.

"I think you've just got perceptual tuning for the human to human context"

Not at all. I have to learn how to talk very differently to people on both ends of the IQ range. Wealth is a terrible proxy for IQ because it doesn't actually correlate very much due to accidents of birth and interests. Just look at Terrance Tao vs Trump's idiot sons.

Demis was boon to a rather poor family, he used his own money to buy his first computer (from chess winnings.)

His father didn't have a steady job even, he is truly a black swan.