Britain’s Brainpower: Amplifying the People-Powered Economy with Non-Invasive Neurotechnology
It’s no secret that the British economy is stagnating. Labour productivity has grown at half the rate of our peers since 2008. In 2023, real terms wages were back to where they were during the financial crisis, depriving the average worker of £10,700 per year in lost wage growth. A new approach is needed to tackle our feeble economic growth and relative decline in living standards. This article presents a different way of approaching Britain's stagnation and is an entry into the TxP Progress Prize.
“The only way to create prosperity is to do more with less. In economic terms, an increase in productivity is an increase in the amount or quality of output generated for each unit of input. Jobs do not make society wealthier — productivity does.” - Joe Lonsdale
Productivity is the key to solving our economic woes. But in the words of Andrew Haldane, ex-Chief Economist at the Bank of England: “If productivity was measured by words written and spoken on the subject, it would have long since been solved.” It’s time we consider an alternative approach.
The British economy is a services economy. Services account for 81% of our economic output and 85% of employment. We are the second biggest exporter of services in the world. If we are to have significant improvements in our economy, it will come from our services sector. Services are largely driven by the application of our knowledgeable workforce. We are ranked 8th by the Global Knowledge Index and second by our higher education sector. Recently, governments have focused on artificial intelligence as the new tool of choice for enhancing productivity. I believe we are missing a great opportunity to accelerate what drives our services economy: human intelligence.
1) Make human productivity enhancement a governmental research objective
Productivity improvement is a key aspect of both the UKRI strategy and the government's research objectives, but only in the general sense that innovation improves productivity. Adding human productivity enhancement as an explicit goal would incentivise researchers to develop novel technologies for this purpose. There is a broad range of possible productivity enhancers, from low-tech options such as creatine supplementation, which appears to improve memory, particularly in older adults resulting in downstream effects on productivity or wearing eye masks while we sleep. Alternatively, high-tech solutions, such as specialist exoskeletons for repetitive tasks and neurotechnology approaches, can enhance human productivity.
Particular attention should be paid to technologies, like artificial intelligence, that have the potential for a broad-ranging outsized impact. In the long term, we will get the largest benefits from those technologies that can potentially improve productivity with four key features: Scale, iteration speed, versatility and impact on knowledge work.
In terms of augmenting human intelligence, there are three main approaches: Pharmaceuticals, invasive neurotechnology and non-invasive neurotechnology. It takes 10-15 years and costs $1.1 billion to get each drug to market. They are fundamentally slow to iterate on and typically lack versatility. Invasive brain stimulation suffers from similar barriers. For example, invasive brain stimulation for Parkinson's has been used in the NHS for decades, yet less than 5% of patients use DBS, partly due to the complexity and cost. For example, the device has to be adjusted every few months. The surgical implantation of sensors and stimulators is incredibly valuable for people with serious medical conditions. However, we are decades away from the risks being worth the rewards of implanting such devices into healthy people.
Conversely, non-invasive neurotechnology allows for the reading and writing of information to and from the brain with minimal risks. These devices rest on the scalp like a hat and require no surgery. The technology is well established, with many decades of human trials enabling a wide variety of ever-increasing use cases. Advances in machine learning and techniques that allow for wearable, high-resolution real-time brain reading as well as steerable and precise brain stimulation have transformed what is possible - all with a technology that can be manufactured at scale by the existing consumer electronics industry.
This technology is already being used to help ease the symptoms of depression, which affects 1 in 6 adults in the UK. Non-invasive neurotechnology is being trialled in the NHS and has been approved by the FDA. Menstrual symptoms affect millions and result in an average of 9 days of lost productivity per person per year, and neurotechnology could help ease some of these symptoms. But this is just the beginning, from improving memory in older adults and monitoring the brain activity of newborns to improving sleep for people of all ages, neurotechnology is poised to transform our health, wellness and productivity.
“The applications for neural interfaces are as unimaginable today as the smartphone was a few decades ago.” - Chris Toumazou FREng FMedSci, FRS, Co-Chair
2) Create a neurotechnology task force
To mitigate risks and enhance capabilities, the government established the Frontier AI Taskforce. Neurotechnology has tremendous potential upsides for the UK but also carries significant risks. A neurotechnology task force could help answer some of the following questions:
What is the optimal approach the government can take to incentivise innovation?
What parts of our brains should be off-limits?
Who should have access to our most personal data?
What would be required for the civil service to use neurotechnologies?
3) Invest early and often
The UK is in a great position to lead in the creation and adoption of these technologies. We operate some of the best research labs in the world and boast a growing list of companies working on non-invasive neurotechnology. But, as with AI, we won’t be able to compete in investment with larger countries such as the US and China in the long term. Investment now could put us at an advantage in the decades to come, as there is a first movers advantage when it comes to the data collected and customer feedback.
4) Pioneer regulations in neurotechnology, particularly in non-clinical applications
Concerns have already been raised about the need for BCI-specific regulations in the UK, particularly around non-medical use cases and privacy concerns. More recently, there has been broad condemnation of the EU’s decision to reclassify established, safe techniques into the highest risk category, unnecessarily hindering progress. Pioneering regulations that encourage innovation while ensuring high-quality products is essential to a thriving neurotechnology industry.
There are also potential national security concerns once these devices become broadly used. While these concerns will continue to evolve with the global geopolitical environment, the government should employ a proactive approach to mitigate risk. For example, the UK recently removed Chinese-owned CCTV cameras from government sites, and the US banned chip exports to China. There should be serious reflection about who designs, controls and maintains these devices and the associated datasets.
We are at the precipice of something truly world-altering. Now is the time for the government to amplify the people-powered economy with non-invasive neurotechnology.