A Cambridge-educated Manchester Uni professor who specialises in artificial intelligence has spoken out against members of elite intelligence group Mensa, claiming some are ‘remarkably stupid’.
Professor Stephen Furber lectures in Computer Engineering at the University of Manchester and is an award-winning member of The Royal Society who was awarded a CBE in 2008 for services to computer science.
A researcher into human intelligence, the professor is not a member of intelligence club Mensa, despite being a Cambridge graduate and a former lead developer at ARM and Acorn computers.
ARM is the designer of the world’s highest volume micro-processor, for which there are seven for every single person in the world.
“Some members of Mensa can be remarkably stupid,” he said.
“I’ve never particularly been interested, I am a little bit suspicious of its role in the world and I also think it’s conveying a curious story.”
Professor Furber is currently working on the SpiNNaker project, which is as computer architecture design aiming to stimulate and read the human brain.
“I am interested in human intelligence and Mensa is a club for people who are very intelligent by some standard, but we haven’t really worked out what intelligence is.”
Mensa is a society for those with an IQ in the top 2 percentage.
It has 21,000 members and according to its website, claims to ‘identify and foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity’.
Professor Furber said: “I’ve never had any contact with them, nobody has ever suggested I should join.”
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Image courtesy of Chris Devers, with thanks
