What Should We Learn? Should We Upgrade our Brains?

Neurotechnology is one of the hottest areas of engineering, and the technological achievements sound miraculous: Paralyzed people have controlled robotic limbs with their brains, while blind people are receiving implants that send signals to their visual centers. Researchers are figuring out how to make better devices to record neural signals or change the way the brain functions.

While much of this work is intended to help people with disabilities or illnesses, there’s growing interest in augmenting the abilities of all. Senior Associate Editor Eliza Strickland talked to Anders Sandberg, a researcher at the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute about the ethical implications, and how neurotech could reshape society. The detailed talk can be found in IEEE Spectrum, January 2018.