I'm going to tell you a story. For that story to make sense, I need to give you some background context.

I have some pretty smart friends. One of them is Peter Schmidt-Nielsen. Peter has an illustrious line of descent. His paternal grandfather was Knut Schmidt-Nielsen, regarded as one of the great animal physiologists of his time. His paternal grandmother was Bodil Schmidt-Nielsen, who became the first woman president of the American Physiological Society. Bodil's father was August Krogh, who won the 1920 Nobel Prize in Physiology "for the discovery of the mechanism of regulation of the capillaries in skeletal muscle", and later went on to found the company that would eventually become Novo Nordisk.

Peter himself is no slouch. He was homeschooled for most of his childhood. When it was time to go to university, he simultaneously applied to MIT's undergrad and grad programs, and was accepted to both. (He decided to go to undergrad.) He went on to do some startup stuff, then was an early employee at Redwood. While there, he broke Meow Hash for fun. (He's not a security guy.)

My point here is: Peter is very, very smart.

Ok, here's the story.

One day [...]

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First published:
April 12th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CBTe8Etwb9wdjbpZC/returns-to-intelligence

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

Twelve different arrangements of blue cubes in three-dimensional configurations.

Four hand-drawn 4x4 grids filled with various letters on white paper.

Two colorful wooden cube puzzles on a hardwood floor.

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“Returns to intelligence” by RobertM

LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“Returns to intelligence” by RobertM