Friday 7 June 2013

Keep taking the pills: your job may depend on it [feedly]

via The Work Foundation blog by Anjana Ahuja

Don’t you wish you could do your job just that little bit better? If you’re on a physically demanding assembly line, maybe you wish you could stand for longer without tiring. If you’re a currency trader, perhaps you dream of the fortune you could make if your reactions were sharper.

Astonishingly, the technology already exists to make both of those wishes come true. Companies are building exoskeleton suits that could allow soldiers to operate with heavy loads on the battlefield. And drugs are already used widely, if under the radar: Ritalin to boost short-term memory, and modafinil by sleep-deprived doctors and students to improve alertness. Human enhancement is here, and it has the potential to revolutionise both the workplace and the workers who occupy it. That makes it a fantastic, if faintly scary, subject for the Work Foundation to have chosen for its annual debate this year.

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