A major new European research prize, the first annual Frontiers Spotlight Award 2017, has been awarded to the editors of an exceptional research collection, published in Frontiers in Neuroscience, on the augmentation of brain function. This research collection of almost 150 scientific articles covers all aspects of brain augmentation with notable implications and considerations for creating human super-intelligence. 

As tech billionaires like Elon Musk and scientists like Stephen Hawking warn of an impending artificial intelligence arms race, a collection of groundbreaking new research into human super-intelligence and brain performance, has won a major new European research prize.

Led by prominent neuroscientists Dr Mikhail Lebedev from Duke University, Dr Ioan Opris a researcher at the University of Miami School of Medicine’s Miami Project to Cure Paralysis and Dr Manuel Casanova at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, more than 600 authors contributed almost 150 research articles investigating brain augmentation – on everything from brain-machine interfaces, neurostimulators and the application of neuropharmacology.

Just a decade or two ago the idea of brain augmentation was reserved for science fiction but with the rapid development of neuroscience and related technological and medical fields, many of the past decade’s science fiction themes – sending information to the brain, reading out information from brain content, transferring simple memories from one brain to another, and adding artificial parts to the brain – are becoming real.

Duke University’s Dr Mikhail Lebedev said, “By 2030, augmentation of intelligence with brain implants will no longer be only the subject of research; people will have to deal with the reality of this new paradigm. This collection of research should alert scientists and the broader public to its possible ethical, medical, health and legal implications.”