Dr. Richard Haier is an emeritus professor of Pediatric Neurology at UC Irvine, who spent his career studying the neuroscience of intelligence. Over the course of his career, Haier has come to believe in the existence of a “g-factor,” a measurable quantity of broad spectrum intelligence that is universally predictive of success in all cultures. He also believes that intelligence is a fixed characteristic, and that it’s possible to predict someone’s intelligence by watching how their brain works when trying to solve a puzzle. We sit down with him to figure out how far one can take this theory of intelligence before running headlong into a heartless social darwinism, why intelligence research feels so creepy, if IQ tests are actually measuring what we think they’re measuring, if intelligence is really the thing that we should be optimizing for, and if it’s possible for technology to make us dumber.