2.1. Cognitive Enhancement
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2.1. Cognitive Enhancement
Use the future to build the present
Cognitive Enhancement
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Stakeholder Type
1.1Advanced AI1.2QuantumRevolution1.3UnconventionalComputing1.4AugmentedReality1.5CollectiveIntelligence2.1CognitiveEnhancement2.2HumanApplicationsof GeneticEngineering2.3HealthspanExtension2.4ConsciousnessAugmentation2.5Organoids2.6FutureTherapeutics3.1Decarbonisation3.2EarthSystemsModelling3.3FutureFoodSystems3.4SpaceResources3.5OceanStewardship3.6SolarRadiationModification3.7InfectiousDiseases4.1Science-basedDiplomacy4.2Advancesin ScienceDiplomacy4.3Foresight,Prediction,and FuturesLiteracy4.4Democracy-affirmingTechnologies5.1ComplexSystemsScience5.2Futureof Education5.3Future Economics,Trade andGlobalisation5.4The Scienceof theOrigins of Life5.5SyntheticBiology
1.1Advanced AI1.2QuantumRevolution1.3UnconventionalComputing1.4AugmentedReality1.5CollectiveIntelligence2.1CognitiveEnhancement2.2HumanApplicationsof GeneticEngineering2.3HealthspanExtension2.4ConsciousnessAugmentation2.5Organoids2.6FutureTherapeutics3.1Decarbonisation3.2EarthSystemsModelling3.3FutureFoodSystems3.4SpaceResources3.5OceanStewardship3.6SolarRadiationModification3.7InfectiousDiseases4.1Science-basedDiplomacy4.2Advancesin ScienceDiplomacy4.3Foresight,Prediction,and FuturesLiteracy4.4Democracy-affirmingTechnologies5.1ComplexSystemsScience5.2Futureof Education5.3Future Economics,Trade andGlobalisation5.4The Scienceof theOrigins of Life5.5SyntheticBiology

Emerging Topic:

2.1Cognitive Enhancement

    Associated Sub-Fields

    The 21st century has seen an acceleration in our ability to decode cognitive states from both invasive brain implants and, increasingly, non-invasive techniques. It has also become possible to manipulate those brain states in increasingly targeted ways using a wide spectrum of methods, from electrical to chemical. Thanks to these recent insights from neuroscience and the development of tools able to restore impaired brain function, demands for upgrades to healthy cognitive functioning have steadily grown.1

    Most existing investigations into cognitive enhancement have sought to restore performance when deemed disordered or impaired, for example to aid people with incapacitating disorders of memory such as Alzheimer’s disease. More recently, new stakeholders have emerged in the race to monitor and boost cognitive states in healthy people. Imminent brain monitoring technologies, aided by ever more capable AI, provide the ability to decode and alter cognitive and emotional states and make them increasingly transparent. Several employers already use monitoring, for example to ensure employees do not lose focus or concentration while driving or operating machinery.2 Systems to enhance, rather than just monitor, cognition vary in their efficacy. Truly successful enhancement of healthy cognition will need to build on more specific, mechanistic theories.

    The ability to monitor and change cognitive capacity is something many people want. This suggests that it will be widely adopted once the technology gets to a particular inflection point, and will yield unexpected applications across society. New privacy schemes must be developed and ethical guidance formalised ahead of these technologies, to ensure that this kind of data is protected, including neurorights and cognitive liberty. Even more urgent is governance around emerging ways to alter and improve cognition. Unanticipated societal outcomes are guaranteed, and society must be ready.

    SELECTION OF GESDA BEST READS AND KEY REPORTS:

    In May 2023 a Swiss-French collaboration unveiled an advance in the digital brain-spine interface. Their Nature publication, Walking naturally after spinal cord injury using a brain–spine interface, described a groundbreaking technology that allowed an individual with tetraplegia to regain walking abilities. There was, in addition, an unexpected outcome: enhanced neurological recovery beyond system use. In August 2023, two teams based in the US published A high-performance neuroprosthesis for speech decoding and avatar control and A high-performance speech neuroprosthesis, detailing breakthrough brain-computer interfaces which offer a potential communication solution for those with severe facial paralysis.

    Emerging Topic:

    Anticipation Potential

    Cognitive Enhancement

    Sub-Fields:

    Fundamentals of cognition
    Brain monitoring
    Neuromodulation systems
    Exogenous cognition
    Few technologies have such potential to drastically reshape our societies as cognitive enhancement. Bringing this technology to fruition will require advances in a wide range of scientific fields, with this convergence driving the need for anticipation in this area. Brain monitoring technology and neuromodulation delivery systems are closer to maturity than the other approaches. Memory modification should be a particular focus, as the least mature technology.

    GESDA Best Reads and Key Resources

    Article

    iHuman Blurring lines between mind and machine

    Published:

    7th Aug 2021

    Neural interfaces, brain-computer interfaces and other devices that blur the lines between mind and machine have extraordinary potential.

    These technologies could transform medicine and fundamentally change how we interact with technology and each other. At the same time, neural interfaces raise critical ethical concerns over issues such as privacy, autonomy, human rights and equality of access.

    This Royal Society Perspective takes a future-facing look into possible applications of neural and brain-computer interfaces, exploring the potential benefits and risks of the technologies and setting out a course towards maximising the former and minimising the latter.