Why do Singularitarians think greater-than-human intelligence will be so powerful?
Relative to what is physically possible, evolutions design of the human mind was relatively ad hoc, slow, and tuned for maximizing our reproduction and survival rather than our best interests. The great bulk of the human brains design took place during our hunter-gatherer phase, so our minds are optimized for living in a highly primitive environment. Most of the brain evolved in the absence of general intelligence and consciousness, so the more recent evolutionary innovations were forced to make use of outdated cognitive machinery. Hardware improvements to intelligence conducted by intelligent entities themselves can potentially avoid the pitfalls and constraints of evolution. We can test, analyze, and enhance the bundle of algorithms responsible for human intelligence, and implement those algorithms on faster, more robust hardware. Smarter-than-human minds created through human knowledge and technology will have access to the reasoning which led to their construction, and will be able
