- The channel debated whether IQ tests are meaningful measures of intelligence, with one participant arguing they are “very poor and primitive” compared to modern LLM benchmarks, while another defended their predictive power across domains and noted that LLM benchmark questions can be surprisingly hard for humans.  
- Cortical neuron counts were compared across species: humans ≈ 21 B, bottlenose dolphins ≈ 13 B, orcas ≈ 43 B, and long-finned pilot whales ≈ 37 B, prompting discussion of why no systematic IQ-style testing of non-human animals is attempted.  
- A historical anecdote was shared about “Old Tom,” a wild orca that cooperated with Australian whalers under a “Law of the Tongue,” illustrating inter-species contractual behavior and raising questions about cetacean intelligence.  
- kanzure proposed training future LLMs in high-bandwidth embodied simulations where tokens represent full agent traces (sensorimotor + internal monologue) rather than raw text, and suggested pairing the simulation with a human mentor who reads and acts out text for the agent.  
- geneh2 highlighted a new transformer-based motion-planning algorithm (VQ-MPT) that achieves state-of-the-art performance on robotic arm path-planning problems, showing transformers can outperform classical planners.  
- fenn countered with evidence that the Mamba state-space model beats transformers on chess learning efficiency, offering lower inference cost and better context scaling, hinting at a shift away from pure attention mechanisms.  
- A vigorous discussion on the definition of intelligence ensued: pinkbearer offered “ability to perform work on arbitrarily distant symbols in concept space,” harmoniq.punk cited Marcus Hutter’s “ability to successfully traverse a broad range of environments,” and nsh emphasized etymological roots in “discernment” and choice.  
- harmoniq.punk argued current deep nets are “dumb” because they rely on layer-wise combinations (10^13) instead of full permutations (10^157), claiming a 10×10 analog op-amp matrix could surpass human connectomic complexity and deliver >1 quadrillion effective parameters.  
- The geopolitical impact of autonomous drones was underscored by references to the 2018 Tigray conflict, where Iranian-supplied drones decisively reversed insurgent gains, and to Ukraine as a live testing ground for AI-enabled combat robots.  
- kanzure linked a critical blog post warning against the commercial probiotic LuminA’s use of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that secrete the very antibiotic they resist, calling it an evolutionary selection experiment in users’ mouths.