Buzzard submission on the Trip Report
by: Kristen Pavle
Part of Game02
- Starting with the ending: tech-enabled "multimodal biosensing" tools that can change what an individual sees, hears, smells, feels. Combined with psychedelics to put one in a changeable, adaptable environment... "the implications [of this] are incredibly compelling."
- Add to the mix:
- an extraordinarily well-funded, powerful institution: UCSF, Neuroscape Division
- charismatic trailblazers in neuroscience and psychedelics: Robin Carhart Harris and Adam Gazzaley
- And a seemingly throw-away comment that this neurotech x psychedelic combo can revive wisdom traditions which are currently threatened by extinction.
- What do you get? A combination of terror and excitement!
- Add to the mix:
- The positives
- The Goldilocks mental model for driving mental growth (referred to as "closed loop systems"). The basic idea is essentially simple: provide an intervention (some kind of digital tech, perhaps a game), collect data on individual's response in real-time, use that data to moderate the intervention to stay in a sweet spot of how "challenging" the intervention is.
- Challenging equates to a kind of Goldilocks sweet spot, from which change or growth can occur.
- This approach is resonant in me and I've used it to grow as a person in many ways: physical strength, embodiment and understanding of the relationship between my body and mind, spiritual understanding of life and being, personal development and how I relate to myself and others, work or career growth.
- What's got me a bit unnerved about this whole shebang
- The language used to describe much of this project and area tends toward being more medicalized (deficit focused), quantitative, analytic, growth oriented, market-based, authoritative, and individualized.
- For example, here's a smattering of excerpted bits, along with why this concerns me:
- "The world’s foremost psychedelic researcher is joining the world’s foremost translational neuroscience lab at one of the world’s foremost biomedical research institutions."
- Is "foremost" the best criteria to evaluate approach, tools, and leadership when it comes to programming people's minds?
- The term "treatment" is repeatedly used, along with "digital therapeutics" or DTx which are described as "affect(ing) clinical endpoints through behavior modification". Plus the part about Nikhil Krishnan on a Andreesen Horowitz podcast talking about the "scalability" of DTx.
- Is this the best ecosystem from which to approach mind-programming?
- An "FDA-approved" video game to treat ADHD
- Are major U.S. institutions in a position to evaluate, let alone regulate, this kind of tech?
- References to "high precision, personalized data"
- Considering how we use personalized data now in digital tech (i.e. largely to market products and drive traffic through consumer-based flows), the mere thought of this being used to program minds is unsettling.
- "The world’s foremost psychedelic researcher is joining the world’s foremost translational neuroscience lab at one of the world’s foremost biomedical research institutions."
- What's missing
- Discussion about the ethics of this kind of technology
- The role of a community in these kinds of interventions
- The broader ecosystem of our global society within which this is occuring: namely talking about existing systems and how they'll intersect with this tech
- Who is shepherding this kind of technology into the world, and are these the right people?
- More but this is getting long...
- Good jumping off point for this kind of tech, needs a balanced ecosystem to support its evolution - can't be only about the science and technology!