EA - Cause Area: Differential Neurotechnology Development by mwcvitkovic

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Cause Area: Differential Neurotechnology Development, published by mwcvitkovic on August 10, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Research assistance from AJ Kourabi, Sabrina Singh, and Neiman Mathew. A shorter, self-contained version of this document was submitted to the Open Philanthropy Cause Exploration Prizes. In three sentences Neurotechnology could have extremely positive or negative impacts on the wellbeing of humanity and other beings in the near- and long-term future. Almost no efforts have the stated goal of differential neurotechnology development. There are fundable projects that could help preferentially advance the development of beneficial and risk-reducing neurotechnologies. Summary A neurotechnology is any tool that directly, exogenously observes or manipulates the state of biological nervous systems, especially the human brain. Brain-computer interfaces and antidepressant drugs are familiar examples. Importance Neurotechnologies could have profound impacts on the near- and long-term future. In the positive direction, neurotechnologies have the potential to: Address the growing ~21% share of global disease burden from neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders Generally reduce suffering and improve subjective wellbeing Improve individual reasoning and cognition Inform decision-making on topics like the suffering of non-human minds Help develop safe AI systems In the negative direction, neurotechnologies have the potential to: Lead to addiction or other personal harms Exacerbate authoritarianism Irreparably corrupt human values Increase risks from AI systems Differential neurotechnology development is the project of preemptively creating the most beneficial or risk-reducing neurotechnologies before any others. Investing in differential neurotechnology development now could be timely. On current trajectories, neurotechnologies in clinical trials today could have large-scale impacts in 1-5 decades, with 30 years as a mean estimate. And with concerted effort, neurotechnologies currently in clinical and preclinical development could be advanced in 10 to 20 years to the point where they might meaningfully benefit AI safety, in addition to other, potentially less-urgent benefits. Neglectedness Of the ~$20B/year that goes toward funding neuroscience overall, ~$4B/year goes toward non-drug, central nervous system neurotechnology development. But almost no efforts have the stated goal of differential neurotechnology development. Tractability Fundable opportunities today for a new philanthropist that might help achieve differential neurotechnology development include: Research and forecasting relevant to differential neurotechnology development, particularly on the cost-effectiveness of specific interventions (