http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/al_events

The Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University will hold a workshop and symposium on the economics and social impact of widespread weak cognition enhancement. The workshop will be a small and tightly focused event, with participants invited from a few relevant disciplines. This workshop would be followed by a larger symposium on cognitive enhancement and related ethical and policy issues to take place on the following day.

Cognitive ability clearly plays a major part in individual life outcomes and the functioning of societies as wholes. It is strongly linked to education, human capital, health and economic gains in complex feedback loops. If methods of cognitive enhancement (through biological interventions, new training methods etc) become available, how large an impact would they have? It appears likely that weak but pervasive improvements in cognition could have significant effects on a societal level. The goal of the workshop is to estimate the size and type of such impacts.