Cognitive Performance Enhancers Is Risky Business

Cognitive performance enhancers promise to deliver a better version of ourselves: smarter, more alert and more mentally agile. But what if such enhancement was no longer a personal choice but a socially and legally enforced responsibility? In the final instalment of Biology and Blame, Nicole A Vincent and Emma A. Jane explore the risks of normalising this emerging trend.

In Australia and all around the world, students, academics and professionals of various stripes are increasingly experimenting with new cognitive enhancement technologies to boost their memory, attention, reflexes, clarity of thought and ability to function well with little sleep.

Hey, I virtually never sleep. I’m lucky if I get a few hours.. I’ll take a whole bunch!

Cognitive enhancers could join coffee, pain killers and antibiotics as an accepted – and expected – mode of self-improvement. Flickr/cosmo flash, CC BY-SA
Cognitive enhancers could join coffee, pain killers and antibiotics as an accepted – and expected – mode of self-improvement. Flickr/cosmo flash, CC BY-SA

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