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Why the ugly history of IQ testing matters for AI and education

Summary
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has recently been discussing “artificial general intelligence” that matches or surpasses human capabilities. This is from the same person who has said children born today (including his own) will “never be more intelligent than AI, from a ‘raw IQ’” (intelligence quotient) perspective. United States President Donald Trump has also recently mused about who is and who is not “high IQ.” As a scholar rooted in the history of Canadian higher education and its intersections with rhetoric around disability and race, every time I hear the word “intelligence,” including as “IQ,” I get jumpy. “Intelligence” clearly has a high-stakes and worrisome future, but also a dark history. To figure out what AI might be replacing, we need to better understand intelligence as a historically situated idea — and a dangerous one — rather than as some sort of biological fact.

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The Conversation broke the news in Boston, United States on Sunday, October 18, 2026.
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