If any of these innovations are to achieve their full potential for improving human well-being and establishing more inclusive societies, questions of how, why and for whom they are deployed must be addressed. Here, we examine the research on human augmentation now under way, and anticipate how opportunities may be realised for future breakthroughs to be truly transformational.

Associated Emerging Topics:

Emerging Topic

Cognitive Enhancement

It is clear that recent advances in neuroscience and machine learning have ushered in innovations for cognitive enhancement, for example, improving human memory, cognition, and other aspects of consciousness. In the near term, such technologies will treat neurodegenerative disorders and psychiatric conditions that involve significant memory impairments and for which currently no therapies exist. Reading from, and writing to, the brain is becoming increasingly sophisticated — especially as AI research improves our signal-reading capabilities — offering a range of new applications. Human memory augmentation will become increasingly available for enhancement purposes, alongside psychoactive drugs that improve cognitive abilities beyond IQ.

Emerging Topic

Healthspan Extension

Beyond dealing with existing problems, scientific and technological tools may redefine the fundamentals of what it means to be human, such as what we mean by "getting old". Research to assess ageing processes, and to find biomarkers and other signifiers of age, is suggesting that what we think of as the markers of inevitable ageing could be eradicated, and the physical changes that we associate with ageing might even be reversible to some degree. A new generation of clinical trials on healthspan extension is about to test such ideas.

Emerging Topic

Future of Consciousness

Lab research using a range of tools such as electromagnetic interventions, molecular psychedelics and pharmaceutical drugs, suggests that it is possible to expand consciousness beyond the limits imposed by human senses, standard cognitive capacity and injury or disease. Such consciousness augmentation could help us improve education, reasoning, memory and the quality of human interactions and give us new ways to diagnose and assist people suffering debilitating disorders of consciousness.

Emerging Topic

Future Therapeutics

Although innovations in medicine have been radically extending human lifespan for more than a century now, there is still plenty of room for improvement. Cardiovascular and metabolic diseases are largely preventable, but still end a significant number of lives unnecessarily early. A range of new treatment options are coming into view, and these future therapeutics could have a great deal to offer medical practitioners. Advances in information technology, biotechnology and basic understanding of how human biology operates are enabling use of electrical signals, AI-driven data analysis, cell therapies and even the mechanisms of the immune system to improve the maintenance of good health, diagnostics of disease and the results of medical interventions.

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2.1 - Cognitive Enhancement