OpenAI CEO Sam Altman doesn’t seem content with running just the biggest chatbot on the planet and wants to get his hands in different spheres. Earlier this week, his company introduced its first browser called ChatGPT Atlas, and he is already confirmed to be working on a hardware offering with former Apple designer Jony Ive.
As if that wasn’t enough, Altman has already co-founded a company called Worldcoin along with Alex Blania to create an “Orb,” a custom biometric imaging device which scans an individual’s iris to verify they are human.
He has also reportedly co-founded another startup with Blania called Merge Labs with the aim of rivalling Elon Musk’s Neuralink by developing technology that allows for direct communication between the human brain and computers without needing invasive surgery.
Sam Altman’s Neuralink rival
As per a latest report by The Verge, Altman has tapped award-winning biomolecular engineer Mikhail Shapiro to join Merge Labs. While Shapiro’s role isn’t reportedly clear, he is said to be positioned as a key leader in talks with investors.
Shapiro’s engineering lab at Caltech is said to have pioneered several advances in biomolecular tech with a special focus on noninvasive techniques for neural imaging and control. He is said to have focused on using ultrasound to interact with the human brain without the need for open-skull surgery.
He has previously said that it is his “mission to develop ways to interface with neurons in the brain and cells elsewhere in the body that would be less invasive.”
Shapiro’s approach stands in firm contrast to Neuralink, which uses surgically implanted chips and threads to create a direct, high-bandwidth connection.
Meanwhile, Altman has also previously said that he does not like the invasive approach adopted by Neuralink. During a press dinner in August, he reportedly said that he “would definitely not sew something to my brain.”
“I would like to be able to think something and have ChatGPT respond to it… Maybe I want read-only. That seems like a reasonable thing,” he added.
Altman had also stated the vision for an inevitable human-AI integration during a blog post in 2017 titled “The Merge,” just a year after Musk, Altman, and others co-founded OpenAI.
Back then, Altman wrote, “I believe the merge has already started, and we are a few years in.”
“We are already in the phase of co-evolution — the AIs affect, effect, and infect us, and then we improve the AI. We build more computing power and run the AI on it, and it figures out how to build even better chips,” he added.
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