Cognitive enhancement research and development (nootropics, devices, …)
Values and Reflective Processes, Economic Growth
Improving people’s ability to think has many positive effects on innovation, reflection, and potentially individual happiness. We’d like to see more rigorous research on nootropics, devices that improve cognitive performance, and similar fields. This could target any aspect of thinking ability—such as long/short term memory, abstract reasoning, creativity—and any stage of the research and development pipeline—from wet lab research or engineering over testing in humans to product development.
Additional notes on cognitive enhancement research:
Importance:
Sign of impact: You already seem to think that AI-based cognitive aids would be good from a longtermist perspective, so you will probably think that non-AI-based cognitive enhancement is also at least positive. (I personally think that’s somewhat likely but not obvious and would love to see more analysis on it).
Size of impact: AI-based cognitive enhancement is probably more promising right now. But non-AI-based cognitive enhancement is still pretty promising, there is some precedent (e.g. massive benefits from iodine supplementation), …
Neglectedness: The research community on many areas of cognitive enhancement research is absolutely tiny. Even very low-hanging fruit doesn’t get picked (e.g. before my team started to work on it, nobody had tried to replicate this 20-year old paper, which found massive IQ increases).
What funding could achieve: From talking to some people, this seems to be an issue of funding (medical funding bodies don’t usually cover enhancement).There are legions of life scientists/psychologists/clinicians who have the relevant skills for this type of research, so if funding was available, I’d expect a lot more of this reserach would happen
I think this is an underrated idea, and should be considered a good refinement/addition to the FTX theme #2 of “AI-based cognitive aids”. If it’s worth kickstarting AI-based research assistant tools in order to make AI safety work go better, then doesn’t the same logic apply towards:
Supporting the development of brain-computer interfaces like Neuralink.
Ordinary productivity-enhancing research software like better note-taking apps, virtual reality remote collaboration tools, etc.
The idea of AI-based cognitive aids only deserves special consideration insofar as:
Work on AI-based tools will also contribute to AI safety research directly, but won’t accelerate AI progress more generally. (This assumption seems sketchy to me.)
The benefit of AI-based tools will get stronger and stronger as AI becomes more powerful, so it will be most helpful in scenarios where we need help the most. (IMO this assumption checks out. But this probably also applies to brain-computer interfaces, which might allow humans to interact with AI systems in a more direct and high-bandwidth way.)
Cognitive enhancement research and development (nootropics, devices, …)
Values and Reflective Processes, Economic Growth
Improving people’s ability to think has many positive effects on innovation, reflection, and potentially individual happiness. We’d like to see more rigorous research on nootropics, devices that improve cognitive performance, and similar fields. This could target any aspect of thinking ability—such as long/short term memory, abstract reasoning, creativity—and any stage of the research and development pipeline—from wet lab research or engineering over testing in humans to product development.
Additional notes on cognitive enhancement research:
Importance:
Sign of impact: You already seem to think that AI-based cognitive aids would be good from a longtermist perspective, so you will probably think that non-AI-based cognitive enhancement is also at least positive. (I personally think that’s somewhat likely but not obvious and would love to see more analysis on it).
Size of impact: AI-based cognitive enhancement is probably more promising right now. But non-AI-based cognitive enhancement is still pretty promising, there is some precedent (e.g. massive benefits from iodine supplementation), …
Neglectedness: The research community on many areas of cognitive enhancement research is absolutely tiny. Even very low-hanging fruit doesn’t get picked (e.g. before my team started to work on it, nobody had tried to replicate this 20-year old paper, which found massive IQ increases).
What funding could achieve: From talking to some people, this seems to be an issue of funding (medical funding bodies don’t usually cover enhancement).There are legions of life scientists/psychologists/clinicians who have the relevant skills for this type of research, so if funding was available, I’d expect a lot more of this reserach would happen
I think this is an underrated idea, and should be considered a good refinement/addition to the FTX theme #2 of “AI-based cognitive aids”. If it’s worth kickstarting AI-based research assistant tools in order to make AI safety work go better, then doesn’t the same logic apply towards:
Supporting the development of brain-computer interfaces like Neuralink.
Research into potential nootropics (glad to hear you are working on replicating the creatine study!) or the negative cognitive impact of air pollution and other toxins.
Research into tools/techniques to increase focus at work, management best practices for research organizations, and other factors that increase productivity/motivation.
Ordinary productivity-enhancing research software like better note-taking apps, virtual reality remote collaboration tools, etc.
The idea of AI-based cognitive aids only deserves special consideration insofar as:
Work on AI-based tools will also contribute to AI safety research directly, but won’t accelerate AI progress more generally. (This assumption seems sketchy to me.)
The benefit of AI-based tools will get stronger and stronger as AI becomes more powerful, so it will be most helpful in scenarios where we need help the most. (IMO this assumption checks out. But this probably also applies to brain-computer interfaces, which might allow humans to interact with AI systems in a more direct and high-bandwidth way.)