Our Highest Selves?

Brain technology is about to radically change the way we live and work

At Stanford University in the 1960s, two research labs on opposite ends of the campus were creating the future of personal computing, albeit driven by very different visions.

John McCarthy coined the term “Artificial Intelligence” and hoped to build a working computer brain within a decade. Meanwhile, Douglas Engelbart’s group, the Augmentation Research Center, wasn’t interested in replacing people with computers, but rather developing ways for computers to improve human intellect. Engelbart and his team’s core research resulted in a head-spinning 1968 demonstration that revealed the fundamental components of personal computing that are so familiar to us today: windows, hypertext, video conferencing, collaborative editing, and, most famously, the mouse. Backchannel’s Steven Levy famously dubbed it “The Mother of All Demos.”

While McCarthy’s impact on computing can’t be overstated, from his groundbreaking research on sharing computing resources to early work on autonomous vehicles, progress in Artificial Intelligence has always ebbed and flowed.

But we directly experience Engelbart’s legacy every time we move our cursor, open a new window, make a Skype call, or interact with our colleagues over Slack.

All of those tools for augmentation have transformed the way we work in dramatic ways. And really, we’ve only scratched the surface of how technology can augment our own minds. At the intersection of neuroscience, biotechnology, and computer science, researchers are making slow but sure strides to reverse engineer the human brain. Of course, any talk of decrypting the brain raises science fiction dreams (or nightmares) of sentient machines. But the more we know about how our own minds operate, the better capable we’ll be to develop tools to enhance what already happens inside our heads.

At the Institute for the Future (IFTF), the non-profit forecasting organization in Silicon Valley where I was a researcher for many years, my colleagues and I explored how we are becoming “Amplified Individuals” at work, empowered by a variety of new technologies and systems at the intersection of neuroscience, biotechnology, computer science, and network effects. As part of our research, we seek out relevant signals — scientific breakthroughs, technology trends, expert opinions — that on their own may cause you to raise your eyebrows but when observed as a complex ecology can reveal interesting insights or trends. A signal is a signpost pointing toward the future. Based on that research, the following are three forecasts about how neurotechnology will change the way we work:

Our displays will react to our mental state.

The phrase information overload has become a cliche, but you ain’t seen nothing yet.

In the coming decades, we’ll constantly be immersed in a cloud of data. To deal with it, we’ll need new kinds of displays that are more in tune with the people starting at them. The interdisciplinary field of Augmented Cognition will lead to computers that passively measure our mental state and react accordingly. Already, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s CogPit platform demonstrated a context-aware jet instrument panel that uses brainwave sensors in the pilot’s helmet to alter the information that’s displayed at any moment. High stress situation? The majority of the data on the pilot’s heads-up display fades away, leaving only the most crucial information displayed.

According to Dylan Schmorrow, who directed the DARPA AugCog program (that created the CogPit platform), technology will “circumvent fundamental human limitations by engineering work environments that will make it easier for people to encode, store, and retrieve the information presented to them.”

We will wear Fitbit-like devices on our heads to train our brains.

From Fitbit to the Apple Watch, wearable devices that enable us to see our lives through the lens of data — from how many steps we’ve taken to how much sleep we get — have become ubiquitous.

Many people share their self-tracking data with others in the name of friendly competition or, frequently, to seek help “reprogramming” their daily lives for desired outcomes like better health. Driven by advancements in sensor technology, several companies have introduced electroencephalography (EEG) headbands that measure the brain’s electrical activity, and have integrated them into mobile biofeedback systems. IneraXon’s Muse headband feeds EEG data into gamified apps to help you calm your scattered mind through a kind of guided meditation with real-time feedback on how you’re doing. The company has has received $17.2 million in funding to develop the system.

In the lab, much more high-resolution data can be gleaned from our gray matter. Recently, psychiatrists at Stanford scanned subjects’ brains via fMRI to shed light on their creative states as they drew simple pictures. In another study, at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, researchers scanned the brain activity of jazz artists improvising with one another. As studies like these provide insight into what opens the tap on our creative juices, we’ll be better positioned to track and optimize our own creativity, flow, and focus. Indeed, it’s not entirely far-fetched to imagine a “mental state leaderboard” at work where you could see at-a-glance which of your colleagues are in the right headspace for a brainstorm, and which ones are more focused on specific, concrete tasks.

“Think of it as a way to check the cognitive temperature of workers,” says Stanford and University of California neuroscientist Melina Uncapher, an Institute for the Future fellow who studies cognitive overload, the workplace, and education.

Our offices will respond to our brainwaves.

Uncapher is currently leading a pilot study with a large technology company to use mobile EEG tracking to study how the office environment — from lighting to natural views to noise levels — impacts the brain, cognition, productivity, and wellness of workers. Prepping a room for a big brainstorm? Maybe it’s time to change the light color.

“If you want to encourage abstract thinking and creative ideas, do you pump in more oxygen or less?” Uncapher says. “Do you raise the ceiling height? Do you make sure you have a view of the natural environment, simulated or real? And if you want people to be more heads-down, is it better for them to be in a room with a lower ceiling?”

The goal, she explains, would be to develop a “quantified environment” that you could precisely tune to different types of working modes.

Of course, Uncapher’s quick to add that almost all neurotechnology in the workplace raises critical questions about personal privacy. All the more reason to think systematically about the future… so that we can make better decisions in the present.

Illustrations by Anna Vignet

Work: Reimagined is a series of sponsored stories dedicated to exploring the evolution of the workplace.