Sam altman, CEO of OpenAI, is preparing to announce his next startup, Merge Labs, with the goal of developing a brain and computer interface (BCI) using sound waves instead of transplant surgery.
This is considered a bold new step in the effort to connect human intelligence and artificial intelligence, and at the same time, a potential countermeasure to Elon Musk's Neuralink project.
altman invited Mikhail Shapiro, a multi-award-winning mobile biology engineer and professor at the California Institute of Technology ( Caltech), to join the Merge Labs founding team with Alex Blania, co-founder of Tools for Humanity, the company behind the Worldcoin project.
Although Shapiro's role has not been officially announced, he is seen as a key figure in Merge's technical orientation and is the leader of negotiations with investors.
Capital calls suggest that Merge could raise hundreds of millions of dollars from OpenAI and other technology funds.
With the appearance of Shapiro, Merge's technological direction became clearer when focusing on brain interfacing solutions, non-invasive computers, using ultrasound and magnetic fields to read and transmit nerve signals without opening the skull or attaching electricity directly to brain tissue, as Neuralink is doing.
For many years, Shapiro's laboratory at Caltech has been at the forefront of developing gene therapy that helps cells respond to ultrasound, opening up the ability to control or record nerve activity without causing physical damage.
According to Bloomberg, Merge Labs may adopt this technology for its first commercial product.
In a recent speech, Shapiro shared that inserting cells to make them react to sound waves could be a much gentler and more feasible approach than planting electricity.
Shapiro affirmed that his goal is to find the way to communicate with nerve cells and other tissues in the human body in the least invasive way.
altman has also expressed skepticism about the chip transplantation method into the brain that Neuralink is pursuing.
I certainly wont plant anything in my brain, Altman said in an August conversation. I just want to be able to think about something and ChatGPT responds, or at least read the thinking, that sounds more reasonable.
Merge Labs is expected to be announced in the next few weeks. altman is likely to take over as president, while Blania will take over the day-to-day running.
If successful, Merge could open a new era of human-tech communication, bringing the world closer to the prospect that altman predicted in 2017: Around 2025 to 2075, humans and machines will merge or overcome by AI.
