OpenAI also wants to get into the head: Sam Altman plans a competitor to Neuralink

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is preparing to create a new company, Merge Labs, with partners to compete with Elon Musk’s Neuralink. With the financial support of OpenAI, this startup will develop a brain-computer interface. It is reported by The Financial Post.

According to the available information, Merge Labs will use artificial intelligence for its brain-computer interface. In addition to Neuralink, this project will also become a competitor for such companies as Precision Neuroscience and Synchron.

The name Merge Labs comes from the term “The Merge,” which Altman coined back in 2017. By this, he meant the moment when the human brain and computers will be connected into a single system. According to the sources, the startup will receive funding mainly from the venture capital division of OpenAI, and its valuation will be about $850 million. Altman will co-found the company with Alex Blanchard, CEO of World (known for its biometric iris scanner, also backed by OpenAI). Altman will not invest his own money in the project.

Altman has been interested in brain-computer technologies for years. Back in 2017, he suggested that the “merger” of humans and computers could happen by 2025, but this prediction did not come true. In more recent publications, he wrote that a “high-speed brain-computer interface” may well become a reality thanks to the rapid development of artificial intelligence, sensor systems, and microelectronics.

Since Merge Labs will be a direct competitor to Neuralink, this will further exacerbate Altman’s personal and technological rivalry with Musk. It began in 2018 when Musk left the board of directors of OpenAI. Although brain signal reading technologies have existed for decades, only recent advances in implants and AI have made it possible to increase the accuracy and speed of data transfer from neurons to the digital system many times over.

Neuralink started its first human clinical trials in January 2024 The first patient became a quadriplegicA quadriplegic is a person who has all four limbs (arms and legs) and often part of the torso paralyzed. Noland Arbo, and later another test participant known as Alex received the implant. He was able to play first-person shooters and create 3D models, while experiencing fewer problems and side effects than Arbo.

Source: engadget