IMO easy and effective access to knowledge is an intelligence
multiplier. the best you could do in this regard prior to the advent of
the computer was to live in a library. Even that was not very good.
Uploading does count. However, I don't feel that the argument is
restricted to uploading. Therefore, I attempted to make an abatract
argument.
My favorite scenario is the use of a modern video interface and
effective software that lets a human make decisions
at a very high rate based on information presented by the computer.
the human's input would affect the computer's output to the human.
the human's decision rate can be very high in such a scenario, even with
fairly restricted human-to-computer commnications: watch a kid playing a
flight-simulation game to see what I mean. The I/O hardware is alrady in
place: what's missing is the software.
So at one end of the spectrum is uploading. At the other is the
existing hardware with new software. In either case, we get a
human/computer collaboration whose intelligence is substantialy
augmented by its computer component. "Intelligence" for the purposes of
this discussion is very(!) narrowly defined as the
quality that permits an entity to design and implement newer and better
computer hardware and software.
The "SI Dream" scenario is a researcher (probably a grad student at MIT,
drinking Jolt cola at 2AM and programming when he should be studying for
an English exam.) The researcher is attempting to enhance a
decision-support system by interfacing it to a knowledge base and to a
graphical information-presentation system. Because the researcher is
interested in software development, the knowledge base is the one he set
up last year as a class assignment in his software engineering class. He
gets the system up, and (since he is currently working on this system)
his first trial run is an attempt to optimize his prototype. He
succeeds, and installs the
next version. With this version, he optimizes the operating system
(He's using LINUX, so he has the source.) Next, he optimizes his
hacking program. Then, he grabs all the workstations in the dorm, via
the net, and oprimizes them. Then, he reoptimizes his program to run in
a distributed mode. Now (about 4AM, I think,) he
hacks the campus routers, and then all computers on the campus,
and then the web. He turns his attention to extending his knowledge
base, probably by hacking The CYC database. By 6AM, he's running
in the whole Web. By the end of the trading day, he owns a controlling
interest in a nice collection of companies on the
NYSE.