Fast Forward to 2040: How to prepare for the new era in brain enhancement that will change the way we think, work, and heal

Decades from now when our aug­ment­ed brains have enhanced our cog­ni­tive func­tion and trans­formed near­ly every aspect of our lives, many of us will look back and won­der why we didn’t do more to pre­pare for these inevitable changes. Gov­ern­ment lead­ers may grap­ple with the run­away effects of AI and brain enhance­ment on geopol­i­tics. Com­pa­nies that fail to incor­po­rate neu­rotech­nolo­gies and BCI into their oper­a­tional flow could lose sig­nif­i­cant mar­ket share and be forced to scram­ble in an attempt to regain a foothold in an indus­try they once dominated.

Work­ers who don’t heed the warn­ings to re-skill or upskill may find them­selves out of a job as entire indus­tries dis­ap­pear. Grad­u­at­ing col­lege stu­dents may dis­cov­er their field of study is no longer rel­e­vant in the busi­ness world, leav­ing them unpre­pared for the chang­ing job mar­ket. Tech inno­va­tors could be caught up in fierce com­pe­ti­tion to snap up employ­ees from a very lim­it­ed tal­ent pool, dri­ving up the cost of inno­va­tion and ham­per­ing its devel­op­ment. And every­day cit­i­zens may be wrestling with the unex­pect­ed con­se­quences of unin­ten­tion­al­ly giv­ing away the rights to their neur­al data.

Rest assured, it doesn’t have to be this way. There are a num­ber of areas where we can take a more prac­ti­cal approach to address the changes already under­way and lay the ground­work for a more seam­less transition.

Policymakers:

Now is the time to cre­ate posi­tions to dri­ve policy.

Address­ing new advances with a one-size-fits-all approach won’t do, how­ev­er. Non-inva­sive technologies—such as our own EEG head­sets, the tablet-based games com­ing out of Adam Gazzaley’s labs, the pro­posed smart­phone-enabled con­cepts at Tom Insel’s Mind­strong, and the poten­tial­ly mem­o­ry-boost­ing movies Ed Boy­den is researching—lie at one end of the spec­trum. On the oth­er end are inva­sive tools—deep brain stim­u­la­tion, neur­al implants, and trans­plant­i­ng mem­o­ries in the hippocampus—that pose greater phys­i­cal risks. In addi­tion, there are neu­rotech­nolo­gies that mere­ly mon­i­tor brain activ­i­ty while oth­ers alter the brain in some way—influencing neu­ro­chem­istry, stim­u­lat­ing or inhibit­ing elec­tri­cal activ­i­ty, or impact­ing cel­lu­lar func­tion. Sim­i­lar­ly, med­ical neu­rotech­nolo­gies dif­fer from con­sumer devices. The most effec­tive pol­i­cy mak­ing will take all of these dif­fer­ences into account. It makes sense that inva­sive med­ical neu­rotech­nolo­gies that alter brain func­tion call for more strin­gent restric­tions and guide­lines than “read-only” con­sumer devices.

In terms of being able to iden­ti­fy peo­ple based on their neu­ro-data, pol­i­cy­mak­ers need to take into account how data is being col­lect­ed, stored, and shared. There is a press­ing need to adopt the con­cept of “informed risk” in addi­tion to the informed con­sent most of us are famil­iar with. Patients and con­sumers should be made aware of a vari­ety of issues asso­ci­at­ed with neu­rotech­nolo­gies and should expect cer­tain pro­tec­tions. Users must be informed about the dif­fer­ences between pri­va­cy (the con­cept that your neur­al data is avail­able only to you), secu­ri­ty (the idea that your neur­al data won’t be inad­ver­tent­ly shared), and anonymi­ty (the under­stand­ing your neur­al data may be shared but with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of you being identified).

Education:

Nations will have to rethink edu­ca­tion­al sys­tems, retool­ing the focus to pro­vide the build­ing blocks for the future by empha­siz­ing STEAM (Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy, Engi­neer­ing, Arts, and Math­e­mat­ics) pro­grams. Edu­ca­tors also have a tremen­dous oppor­tu­ni­ty to pro­duce bet­ter results by tak­ing advan­tage of the lat­est advances in neu­rotech­nol­o­gy in a vari­ety of ways—tailoring edu­ca­tion to indi­vid­ual learn­ing styles, allow­ing stu­dents to uti­lize tech­nol­o­gy that facil­i­tates learn­ing, and mak­ing tools avail­able that pro­mote bet­ter focus and attention.

Four-year col­leges may become a thing of the past. As the econ­o­my starts to change at a break­neck pace, pro­fes­sion­als may need to skill up more quick­ly and more often through­out their careers. I see the con­cept of high­er edu­ca­tion mov­ing away from the tra­di­tion­al teacher-pupil mod­el of learn­ing a sub­ject from the mas­ter and shift­ing toward the facil­i­ta­tion of life­long learn­ing. Our edu­ca­tion­al efforts will be bet­ter suit­ed by focus­ing on com­plex prob­lem solv­ing, crit­i­cal think­ing, and cre­ativ­i­ty so we can acquire and imple­ment the skills that will be required in the Fourth Indus­tri­al Revolution.

Business:

Machines and algo­rithms are expect­ed to dis­place 75 mil­lion jobs by 2022, accord­ing to the WEF Future of Jobs Report 2018. But the news isn’t all dire. AI is also expect­ed to cre­ate 133 mil­lion new jobs for a net gain of 58 mil­lion new posi­tions. By 2022 over half of all employ­ees will require sig­nif­i­cant retrain­ing. Some work­ers may need addi­tion­al edu­ca­tion while oth­ers may need to focus on cre­ativ­i­ty, social and emo­tion­al skills, and oth­er high-lev­el cog­ni­tive func­tions that are more dif­fi­cult to automate.

Take a cue from one of the super­stars in the field who is cre­at­ing an AI blue­print for busi­ness­es. Andrew Ng, a Stan­ford pro­fes­sor and co-found­ing lead of the Google Brain and for­mer chief sci­en­tist at Baidu, is the founder of sev­er­al operations—including Land­ing AI, Cours­era, and deeplearning.ai—that are teach­ing enter­pris­es to inte­grate AI. In 2018, he released “AI Trans­for­ma­tion Play­book: How to Lead Your Com­pa­ny into the AI Era” to help guide com­pa­nies into the field.

In addi­tion, com­pa­nies should address head-on the eth­i­cal con­cerns of neu­rotech­nolo­gies by build­ing trust through trans­paren­cy. This is espe­cial­ly true when it comes to the col­lec­tion, man­age­ment, and shar­ing of neur­al or men­tal data. Devel­op­ing poli­cies regard­ing employ­ee access to and use of new neu­rotech­nolo­gies con­sti­tutes anoth­er area of con­cern. Will brain enhance­ment tools or nootrop­ics become a part of cor­po­rate well­ness pro­grams the same way gym mem­ber­ships and mas­sages are? Will com­pa­nies offer access to brain­wear to increase work­er pro­duc­tiv­i­ty? Will neur­al implants be cov­ered? How will busi­ness­es deal with human-AI inter­ac­tions in the workplace?

Technologists:

Rather than tin­ker indi­vid­u­al­ly on short-sight­ed tech­nolo­gies, our focus should be on full-scale col­lab­o­ra­tion. I rec­om­mend step­ping out of our silos and work­ing togeth­er toward inten­tion­al­ly cre­at­ing some­thing that has long-term ben­e­fits for soci­ety at large.

Cen­tral to this effort is a com­mit­ment to devel­op demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly acces­si­ble tech­nolo­gies that will aug­ment and empow­er the human brain. We will also ben­e­fit from retool­ing our own indus­try. By sim­pli­fy­ing the tools, plat­forms, and tech­nolo­gies we use, we can enable more peo­ple to par­tic­i­pate in the work we do. If we fail to con­front this chal­lenge head-on, we will find the skills gap widen­ing and our own projects will be held back by a lack of viable work­ers. By mak­ing tech­nol­o­gy easy to use, we make it acces­si­ble and in doing so empow­er indi­vid­u­als to cre­ate their own places at the heart of what has been called the “Fourth Indus­tri­al Revolution”—the inte­gra­tion of the phys­i­cal, bio­log­i­cal, and dig­i­tal realms.

Healthcare and insurance:

As neu­rotech­nolo­gies, machine learn­ing, and algo­rithms become inte­grat­ed into the field of pre­ven­tive, diag­nos­tic, and ther­a­peu­tic health­care, it is crit­i­cal to begin map­ping out a deploy­ment strat­e­gy. Health­care providers and diag­nos­ti­cians, typ­i­cal­ly slow to adopt new tech­nolo­gies, will require train­ing to be able to tran­si­tion quick­ly and max­i­mize the ben­e­fits of the tools being devel­oped. Med­ical schools may want to add neu­rotech­nol­o­gy and AI to the course list and med­ical boards may want to con­sid­er offer­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tions or con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion cred­its in new tech­nolo­gies and data science.

With a grow­ing num­ber of neu­rotech­nolo­gies on the hori­zon that can detect and share data on a patient’s bio­log­i­cal or men­tal health sta­tus, it is crit­i­cal to craft and adopt broad pri­va­cy poli­cies. Patients must be made aware of who has access to their data and how it will be used. This isn’t just some social media plat­form shar­ing infor­ma­tion on your post­ing and search habits so mar­keters can tar­get ads to you. This is data on the inner work­ings of your brain—cognitive abil­i­ties and fail­ings, men­tal health issues, and per­haps at some point in the future, even a win­dow into your dark­est thoughts. Health­care orga­ni­za­tions must address these pri­va­cy issues with great care.

Health­care lead­ers should also con­sid­er strate­gies to imple­ment neu­rotech­nolo­gies that can mon­i­tor and reduce med­ical errors due to men­tal fatigue. Track­ing wan­ing focus or reduced reac­tion times could prompt med­ical work­ers to take breaks when nec­es­sary, ulti­mate­ly pro­tect­ing against burnout, reduc­ing employ­ee turnover, and decreas­ing the labor costs asso­ci­at­ed with hir­ing and train­ing new employees.

On the insur­ance side, I would like to see providers begin craft­ing poli­cies regard­ing reim­burse­ment for emerg­ing neu­rotech­nolo­gies and AI diag­nos­tics that will make them avail­able at all income lev­els, not just the wealth­i­est ech­e­lon. Reim­burse­ment is also key for the fur­ther devel­op­ment of treat­ments. If insur­ers fail to grasp the impor­tance of these new tech­nolo­gies, they could lan­guish under­uti­lized. The promise they hold to heal in remark­able new ways could fizzle.

Individuals:

For any­one who wants to suc­ceed in work and in life, emerg­ing brain enhance­ment tech­nolo­gies offer tremen­dous promise. The same way we have tak­en con­trol of our phys­i­cal health with dig­i­tal devices that track our heart rate, blood pres­sure, exer­cise, and nutri­tion, we will be able to har­ness and strength­en the pow­er of our brain with tools that enhance cog­ni­tive func­tion cre­ativ­i­ty, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, mood, mem­o­ry, and more. But adapt­ing to the new tech­nolo­gies won’t be with­out fric­tion. Indi­vid­u­als who ded­i­cate them­selves to learn­ing how to make the brain sync with the new tools will out­per­form those who aren’t will­ing to invest the hours necessary.

To help you tran­si­tion to aug­ment­ed human sta­tus more seam­less­ly, you can start train­ing your brain now—engage in new expe­ri­ences, dive into tasks that chal­lenge your brain, include diver­si­ty in your every­day life, prac­tice some form of mind­ful­ness, and sharp­en your atten­tion. Most impor­tant­ly, open your mind and accept the real­i­ty that you will most like­ly need to learn how to incor­po­rate some of these tools into your dai­ly life.

– This is an adapt­ed excerpt from the new book The Neu­ro­Gen­er­a­tion: The New Era in Brain Enhance­ment That Is Rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing the Way We Think, Work, and Heal (Ben­Bel­la Books, 2020) by neu­rotech pio­neer Tan Le. An inven­tor, explor­er, and entre­pre­neur, Tan is the founder and CEO of EMOTIV, a San Fran­cis­co-head­quar­tered neu­roin­for­mat­ics com­pa­ny on a mis­sion to improve under­stand­ing of the human brain and to devel­op a plat­form for research and innovation.

You can read pre­vi­ous Neu­ro­Gen­er­a­tion book excerpts here:

• The Neu­ro­Gen­er­a­tion and Humankind’s Quest to Enhance the Brain
• What’s nor­mal? When it comes to the brain, it’s hard to say, and that’s why we need to study glob­al neurodiversity