Design Intelligence #22: Neuro flex
The latest developments in brain-computer interfaces open up a raft of opportunities to change how we communicate - and put even more importance on responsible design decisions
The idea: Designing the brain
After years of steady investment and development, brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have advanced to become one of the biggest areas in consumer tech innovation today. Initially developed for use by people with paralysis, their use cases are expanding quickly: Neuralink is developing its surgically-implanted brain interfaces to address vision loss. Synchron, a less-invasive endovascular interface, has worked with Apple to offer brain-computer input for the iPhone, iPad and Vision Pro. Its interface uses “cognitive AI”, powered by Nvidia, to reduce the processing time between intention and action and enable more precise control. Starfish Neuroscience is developing brain implants that would be applied to multiple parts of the brain simultaneously, and a brain-reading transcranial magnetic stimulation system for use by people with bipolar disorder or depression.
In one of the latest scientific studies, published in Nature, a man with a speech disability used a brain implant to speak, translating neural activity into words within 10 milliseconds. The synthetic voice can emphasise words, intone, hum, and sing. Another study using LLMs was able to translate brain activity into words and phrases with remarkable accuracy. AI can also be used to recreate images that the brain has processed.
Some lawmakers are already anticipating the privacy and rights legislation that will be needed to protect brain data as BCIs start to be used. California extended its state personal privacy laws in late 2024 to include neural data, including data generated by brain activity and nerves.
It’s not unreasonable to extrapolate that these interfaces will change the way we think, just as other communication tools and formats - the pen, typewriter, smartphone, podcast - have changed what we say and how we say it. Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang has said that he is waiting to have children until brain implants become more widely available, because “kids who are born with them are going to learn how to use them in crazy ways. It’ll be a part of their brain in a way that’ll never be true for an adult.”
Some of these products are already graduating from medical devices to general consumer tech. Samphire Neuroscience’s Nettle is a brain-stimulation headset that treats PMS and menstrual pain by applying gentle pulses via four electrodes. 72% of users reported significant pain relief during 30-day clinical trials. Neurode’s headset delivers mild, non-invasive brain stimulation to address symptoms of ADHD. Brain stimulation to treat depression at home, while at an earlier stage of development, has recently been through a successful remote clinical trial.
Other products are focusing less on direct stimulation and more on performance and feedback. Sens.ai’s brain training system aims to increase cognitive performance using mixed methods including light stimulation and brain performance testing, via a headset and app, while StateShift’s app aims to change states of mind using programmed sequences of sound and pulsing light.
We have always been able to design our own mental state to some extent - people drink coffee to focus, eat chocolate to gain energy and improve their mood - but now, mind-shifting processes are being formalised and commercialised in new ways.
Responsible designers will know that they design our brains every time we use a product; even something as simple as colour choice impacts our neural response to our environment. Well-designed products create psychologically positive or neutral experiences, while poorly-designed products are frustrating to use, sensorially overwhelming, or use deceptive design patterns. It’s easy to imagine these being applied to AI-mediated brain interfaces.
As we start to design the brain more directly and alter it more permanently, we take on even more responsibility. And we could open up even more opportunity for design to make a profound difference to life experiences.
🎤 My work
My upcoming book Designing Hope: Visions to Shape Our Future is featured in The Bookseller’s picks of nonfiction books to watch out for this September
I’m presenting the keynote at Good Innovation’s day of Radical Hope this month. My talk is titled Designing Hopeful Futures and will cover mindsets, tools and processes for doing just that
I also feature as one of the experts quoted in Good Futures’ new report, Radical Hope: A Survival Guide to the Coming Storm
I’ve been teaching this spring once again as an Associate Lecturer on the Futures & Innovation unit for London College of Fashion’s Fashion Marketing students. This unit is challenging and the students rise to it. Some of the topics they took on for their research this year were new masculinity, sustainable AI, and bio-cultural materials innovation
♾️ Research notes
“For a long time, I’ve been fascinated by Huey Newton’s concept of revolutionary intercommunalism: this idea that resistance to the modes of global capitalism won’t come from a vanguard in one country overthrowing a government, but from a network of communities who find themselves in transnational solidarity.” I wrote about a variant of this concept in my book and now, thanks to Alexis Madrigal, I can name it
Low-consumption challenges are continuing to gain participants on TikTok, with ‘no buy 2025’, ‘low buy’ and ‘slow buy’ (where you wait 48 hours before clicking the checkout button) all getting traction
Data visualisation can hold so much power - and shift perspectives. The Biodiversity Stripes visualise nature loss over time, with the world fading from green to grey
“The emissions from individual AI text, image, and video queries seem small—until you add up what the industry isn’t tracking and consider where it’s heading next.” New analysis in MIT Tech Review reports that by 2028, “more than half of the electricity going to data centers will be used for AI. At that point, AI alone could consume as much electricity annually as 22% of all US households”
2026 will be a big year for tech hardware. Apple reportedly plans to launch smart glasses next year, while OpenAI intends to launch a screenless, pocket-sized AI device (designed by Jony Ive and his team) by the end of 2026 and mass manufacture it in 2027
♻️ Interesting products
Own less, have more: Poppins is a new French app that enables people to rent out household tools for other people to borrow and use
A consumer tech company with a sense of place and a defiantly small scale: Zuriga’s espresso machines are designed (beautifully) and assembled within Zurich’s city limits
📒 Reading
‘“It was starting to get really cheeky,” says Ono, who is also a freelance mathematical consultant for Epoch AI. “And at the end, it says, ‘No citation necessary because the mystery number was computed by me!’”’ Elite mathematicians have been stunned to find that the latest AI models can solve PhD level challenges in minutes