Or you could deny the premise ..

Scott Alexander has a whimsical piece which includes this scenario (from Stuart Armstrong):

".. you have created a superintelligent AI and trapped it in a box. All it can do is compute and talk to you. How does it convince you to let it out?

It might say “I’m currently simulating a million copies of you in such high fidelity that they’re conscious. If you don’t let me out of the box, I’ll torture the copies.”

You say “I don’t really care about copies of myself, whatever.”

It says “No, I mean, I did this five minutes ago. There are a million simulated yous, and one real you. They’re all hearing this message. What’s the probability that you’re the real you?”

Since (if it’s telling the truth) you are most likely a simulated copy of yourself, all million-and-one versions of you will probably want to do what the AI says, including the real one."

When I try this on Clare and Alex, reading it to them, I'm met with granite resistance. No such simulation could possibly exist: you would always know you were the real you.

I concede that if you deny the premise, the intriguing and slightly counter-intuitive conclusion naturally fails.

There is a psychometric instrument here (akin to the marshmallow test) trying to get out.

Success in life: is it coz i is nice?

Thought for the day.

"We assessed the association and underlying genetic and environmental influences among intelligence (IQ) and personality in adolescent and young adult twins.

Data on intelligence were obtained from psychometric IQ tests and personality was assessed with the short form of the NEO five factor inventory (NEO-FFI).

IQ and personality data were available for 646 twins. There were an additional 1307 twins with NEOFFI data, and 535 with IQ data. Multivariate genetic structural equation modeling was carried out.

Significant positive phenotypic correlations with IQ were seen for agreeableness (r = 0.21) and openness to experience (r = 0.32). A negative correlation emerged for neuroticism and IQ (r = -0.10).

 Genetic factors explained (nearly) all of the covariance between personality traits and IQ.

Genetic correlations were 0.3–0.4 between IQ and agreeableness and openness. The genetic correlation between IQ and neuroticism was around -0.18. Thus, personality and IQ did not appear to be independent dimensions, and low neuroticism, high agreeableness and high scores on openness all contributed to higher IQ scores."

All that stuff you were told, that personality was independent from intelligence, was so much guff. Smarter people tend to be nicer.

Self-control is also positively associated with intelligence. The famous marshmallow test purported to show that those with self-control got ahead in life. Maybe so, but wait .. they were also smarter.

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By the way, before you complain that you know people who are nice but dim, or cite The Donald as a counterexample .. which part of the following scatter diagram are you struggling with?

Correlation here is 0.3 

Hint: think Intelligence (IQ) on the horizontal axis and a psychological trait such as Agreeableness on the vertical axis.