Converging Cognitive Enhancements
ANDERS SANDBERG
a
AND NICK BOSTROM
b
a
Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Faculty of Philosophy,
b
Oxford
Future of Humanity Institute, Faculty of Philosophy & James Martin 21st
Century School, Oxford University, Oxford, OX1 1PT, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT: Cognitive enhancement, the amplification or extension of
core capacities of the mind, has become a major topic in bioethics. But
cognitive enhancement is a prime example of a converging technology
where individual disciplines merge and issues transcend particular local
discourses. This article reviews currently available methods of cognitive
enhancement and their likely near-term prospects for convergence.
K
EYWORDS: cognitive enhancement; cognition; intelligence; biotechnol-
ogy; collective enhancement; mental training; converging technologies
CONVERGING COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENTS
There are few resources more useful than cognitive ability. While other
resources are necessary or desirable, cognition enables them to be used for
achieving personal goals. While there is little evidence that high intelli-
gence causes happiness there appears to be ample evidence that low intel-
ligence increases the risk for accidents, negative life events, and low income
(Gottfredson 1997, 2004) while higher intelligence promotes health (Whalley
and Deary 2001) and wealth. We also need better cognition in order to bal-
ance an increasingly complex society where information becomes more avail-
able and our actions have more far-reaching consequences (Heylighen 2002a,
2002b). There may also be an intrinsic existential value in being able to per-
ceive, understand, and interact well with the world.
Cognitive enhancement may be defined as the amplification or extension of
core capacities of the mind through improvement or augmentation of internal
or external information processing systems. Cognition in turn can be defined
as the processes an organism uses to organize information. This includes both
the acquisition of information (perception), selecting (attention), representing
(understanding), and retaining (memory) information, and using it to guide be-
havior (reasoning and coordination of motor outputs). Interventions to improve
cognitive function may be directed at any one of these core faculties.
Address for correspondence: Anders Sandberg, Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Faculty
of Philosophy, Oxford University, Littlegate House, 16/17 St. Ebbe’s St. Oxford, OX1 1PT. United
Kingdom. Voice: +44(0)1865-286877; fax: +44(0)1865-286886.
e-mail: anders.sandberg@philosophy.ox.ac.uk
Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1093: 201–227 (2006).
C
2006 New York Academy of Sciences.
doi: 10.1196/annals.1382.015
201
http://www.nickbostrom.com
202 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
As cognitive neuroscience has advanced, the list of prospective internal,
biological enhancements has steadily expanded (Farah et al. 2004). Yet to date,
it is progress in information technology and cultural organization that has
produced the most dramatic advances in our ability to process information.
External hardware and software supports now routinely give human beings
effective cognitive abilities that in many respects far outstrip those of our
native minds, and institutions like peer review or markets.
There exists a long tradition in human–computer interaction dealing with
cognitive enhancement, beginning with William Ross Ashby defining intelli-
gence as the “power of appropriate selection,” which could be technologically
amplified similar to physical power (Ashby 1956). By offloading mental tasks
to computers or embedding humans within a software context their cognitive
functioning could be amplified (Licklider 1960). The aim was not artificial
intelligence but rather amplifying human intelligence. The archetypal exam-
ple of this approach is Douglas C. Engelbart’s famous Augmenting Human
Intellect, which defined the goal as:
By ‘augmenting human intellect’ we mean increasing the capability of a man
to approach a complex problem situation, to gain comprehension to suit his
particular needs, and to derive solutions to problems. Increased capability in
this respect is taken to mean a mixture of the following: more-rapid compre-
hension, better comprehension, the possibility of gaining a useful degree of
comprehension in a situation that previously was too complex, speedier so-
lutions, better solutions, and the possibility of finding solutions to problems
that before seemed insoluble. And by ‘complex situations’ we include the
professional problems of diplomats, executives, social scientists, life scien-
tists, physical scientists, attorneys, designers—whether the problem situation
exists for twenty minutes or twenty years. We do not speak of isolated clever
tricks that help in particular situations. We refer to a way of life in an integrated
domain where hunches, cut-and-try, intangibles, and the human ‘feel for a
situation’ usefully co-exist with powerful concepts, streamlined terminology
and notation, sophisticated methods, and high-powered electronic aids.
Man’s population and gross product are increasing at a considerable rate, but
the complexity of his problems grows still faster, and the urgency with which
solutions must be found becomes steadily greater in response to the increased
rate of activity and the increasingly global nature of that activity. Augmenting
man’s intellect, in the sense defined above, would warrant full pursuit by an
enlightened society if there could be shown a reasonable approach and some
plausible benefits (Engelbart 1962).
An important insight was that it is not enough to improve just computer
hardware and software, but psychological and organizational aspects have to
be taken into account.
The cybernetic approach has in itself been technology independent by focus-
ing on what is enhanced rather than the means of doing it. This unfortunately
also causes disconnection from the richer social–ethical debate surrounding
the other approaches, because they mostly take place within bioethics and
medical ethics.
SANDBERG & BOSTROM: CONVERGING COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENTS 203
Studying cognitive enhancement solely in terms of bioethics, computer
supported intelligence amplification or nanomedicine, risks missing the key
commonalities. Converging technologies give a framework to approach the
commonalities between different forms of human enhancement, as well as a
way to contrast their differences and potential for divergence.
Criticisms of enhancements are often stated in a technology-independent
form yet when analyzed from a converging technologies perspective they often
show strong assumptions about a particular kind of technology. Those that are
truly technology independent, even if originating within in a narrow area such
as the genetics discourse, on the other hand raise relevant challenges for broad
areas.
PHARMACEUTICAL BIOTECHNOLOGY
Today there exist a broad range of drugs that can affect cognition. Stimulant
drugs like nicotine and caffeine are traditionally and widely used to improve
cognition. In the case of nicotine a complex interaction with attention and
memory occurs (Warburton 1992; Newhouse et al. 2004; Rusted et al. 2005)
while caffeine reduces tiredness (Lieberman 2001; Smith et al. 2003; Tieges
et al. 2004).
Lashley observed in 1917 that strychnine facilitates learning in rats (Lash-
ley 1917). Since then several families of memory-enhancing drugs affecting
different aspects of long-term memory have been discovered. They range from
stimulants (Soetens et al. 1993; Lee and Ma 1995; Soetens et al. 1995), nutri-
ents (Foster et al. 1998; Korol and Gold 1998; Winder and Borrill 1998; Meikle
et al. 2005), and hormones (Gulpinar and Yegen 2004) over cholinergic ag-
onists (Iversen 1998; Power et al. 2003; Freo et al. 2005) and the piracetam
family (Mondadori 1996) to ampakines (Ingvar et al. 1997; Lynch 1998) and
consolidation enhancers (Lynch 2002). The earliest drugs were mainly non-
specific stimulants and nutrients. For example, during antiquity honey water,
hydromel, was used for doping purposes. Glucose is the major energy source
for the brain, which relies on a continuous supply to function. Increases in avail-
ability (either due to ingestion or stress hormones) improve memory (Wenk
1989; Foster et al. 1998). Stimulants enhance either by increasing the amount
of neuron activity or by releasing neuromodulators, both factors which make
the synaptic change underlying learning more likely.
The growing understanding of memory allowed the development of more
specific drugs. Stimulating the cholinergic system, which appears to gate at-
tention and memory encoding, was a second step. Current interest is focused
on intervening into the process of permanent encoding in the synapses, which
has been elucidated to a great extent and hence has become a promising target
for drug development. The goal would be drugs that not just allow the brain
to learn quickly but also facilitate selective retention of the information that
has been learned. It is known that the above families of drugs can improve
204 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
performance in particular memory tests. It is not yet known whether they also
promote useful learning in real-life situations.
Pharmacological agents might be useful not only for increasing memory
retention, but also for unlearning phobias and addictions (Pitman et al. 2002;
Ressler et al. 2004; Hofmann et al. 2006). Potentially, the combination of
different pharmacological agents administered at different times could allow
users a more fine-grained control of their learning processes, and perhaps even
the ability to deliberately select the contents of their memory.
Even common, traditional, and unregulated herbs and spices, such as sage,
can improve memory and mood through chemical effects (Kennedy et al.
2006). While less powerful than those of dedicated cholinesterase inhibitors,
such effects illustrate that attempts to control access to cognition-enhancing
substances would be problematic. Even chewing gum appears to affect mem-
ory, possibly by heightening arousal or blood sugar (Wilkinson et al. 2002).
Working memory can be modulated by a variety of drugs. Drugs that
stimulate the dopamine system have demonstrated effects, as do choliner-
gic drugs (possibly through improved encoding) (Barch 2004). Modafinil has
been shown to enhance working memory in healthy test subjects, especially at
harder task difficulties and for lower performing subjects (Muller et al. 2004).
(Similar findings, of greater improvements among low performers were also
seen among the dopaminergic drugs, and this might be a general pattern for
many cognitive enhancers.) On a larger battery of tasks, modafinil was found to
increase forward and backward digit span, visual pattern recognition memory,
spatial planning, and reaction time/latency on different working memory tasks
(Turner et al. 2003). The reason might be that modafinil enhances adaptive
response inhibition, making the subjects evaluate a problem more thoroughly
before responding to it, thereby improving performance accuracy. The work-
ing memory effects might hence be part of a more general enhancement of
executive function. A few other drugs may also improve executive function
(Elliott et al. 1997; Kimberg et al. 1997; Mehta et al. 2000). Given that these
functions are closely linked to what is commonly seen as intelligence, they
may be the first step toward true intelligence-enhancing drugs.
Modafinil was originally developed as a treatment for narcolepsy, and can be
used to reduce the performance decrements due to sleep loss with apparently
small side effects and risk of dependency (Teitelman 2001; Myrick et al. 2004).
The drug improved attention and working memory in sleep-deprived physicians
(Gill et al. 2006) and aviators (Caldwell et al. 2000). Naps are more effective
in maintaining performance than modafinil and amphetamine during long
(48 h) periods of sleep deprivation than during short (24 h), but naps followed
by a modafinil dose may be more efficient than either individually (Batejat and
Lagarde 1999). These results, together with hormones like melatonin that can
control sleep rhythms (Cardinali et al. 2002), suggest that drugs can help shape
sleep and alertness patterns to improve task performance under demanding
circumstances.
SANDBERG & BOSTROM: CONVERGING COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENTS 205
Creativity can also be affected pharmacologically. A study using alcohol
demonstrated that a mild dose of alcohol could improve the results of a creative
scientific process (Norlander and Gustafson 1996). The improvement only
occurred when the subjects got the alcohol during the “incubation phase” of
the creative process, the period when they were not actively working on the
problem but presumably their unconscious might have been active. Giving
alcohol in a picture-drawing task during the later verification phase did not
promote creativity (Norlander and Gustafson 1997).
Creative thinking does not just include divergent and disinhibited thinking,
but also requires convergent thinking to focus on the realization of the insight
(Cropley 2006). Excessive divergence or lack of inhibition may be similar to
the situation in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Adult ADHD
individuals show a profile of divergent thinking and do badly on convergent
thinking and inhibition tasks (White and Shah 2006). Hence medications af-
fecting ADHD might promote convergent thinking. Methylphenidate, the most
common treatment and a potential executive function enhancer, did not appear
to impair flexible thinking in ADHD individuals (Solanto and Wender 1989;
Douglas et al. 1995). Giving L-dopa, a dopamine precursor, to healthy volun-
teers did not affect direct semantic priming (faster recognition of words directly
semantically related to a previous word, such as “black-white”) but did inhibit
indirect priming (faster recognition of more semantically distant words, such
as “summer-snow”) (Kischka et al. 1996). This was interpreted by the authors
of the study as dopamine inhibiting the spread of activation within the semantic
network, that is, a focusing on the task.
There also exist drugs that influence how the cerebral cortex reorganizes in
response to damage or training. Noradrenergic agonists, such as amphetamine,
have been shown to promote faster recovery of function after a brain le-
sion when combined with training (Gladstone and Black 2000) and to im-
prove learning of an artificial language (Breitenstein et al. 2004). A likely
explanation is that higher excitability increases cortical plasticity, in turn
leading to synaptic sprouting and remodeling (Stroemer et al. 1998; Gold-
stein 1999). An alternative to pharmacological increase of neuromodulation
is to electrically stimulate the neuromodulatory centers that normally con-
trol plasticity through attention or reward. In monkey experiments this pro-
duced faster cortical reorganization (Kilgard and Merzenich 1998; Bao et al.
2001).
In general, pharmacological enhancement is possible here and now, although
the improvements in ability tend to be a modest 10–20% improvement of test
scores. As for all pharmacology, there are great interindividual variations.
Using enhancer drugs optimally might include tests of neuromodulator levels
to see where the brain setpoints are, pharmacogenomic tests to find how they
are metabolized and neuropsychological tests to check what levels produce
maximum performance. Such fine-tuning is expensive and cumbersome unless
it can be automated.