According to a report by the Financial Times, Sam Altman is preparing to launch a new brain-computer interface startup called Merge Labs and is raising funds for it. Sources said that the company's funding is likely to mainly come from OpenAI's venture capital team. The estimated valuation of Merge Labs is $850 million. Currently, sources said the negotiations are still in the early stages, and OpenAI has not yet officially committed to participating, so the terms of the deal may change.

Brain-Computer Interface for Robots

Image source note: The image is AI-generated, and the image licensing service provider is Midjourney

Merge Labs was also founded in collaboration with Alex Blania, the head of "Tools for Humanity," a digital identity project led by Altman, which aims to verify user identities through eye scanning technology.

Merge Labs will compete with Neuralink, the brain-computer interface company founded by Elon Musk. Neuralink was established in 2016 (although its existence was unknown before 2017), and the company is developing computer interface chips that can be implanted in the brain. Neuralink is currently conducting trials on patients with severe paralysis, aiming to enable them to control devices through their thoughts. The company completed a $600 million Series E funding round in June, bringing its valuation to $9 billion.

Neuralink and Merge Labs have the potential to completely transform the way humans interact with technology. Some people even believe that their technologies could push humanity into the "Singularity" era. The concept of the "Singularity" had already drawn attention long before Silicon Valley became interested in artificial intelligence (AGI). Musk used this term to describe the moment when artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence, while a more classic definition (from a novel of the same name in the 1960s) refers to the fusion of technology and humanity.

Altman mentioned the concept of "merging" in a blog post in 2017. He predicted, "Although merging has already begun, it will become even stranger in the future. We will be the first species to design our own descendants." He mentioned the research he saw at OpenAI at the time, when Musk was still one of its co-founders.

Musk left OpenAI in 2018, and since then, the relationship between the two tech leaders has gradually deteriorated. This week, Altman and Musk had a dispute on the social media platform X, with Altman accusing Musk of controlling X, and Musk calling Altman a "liar."

Currently, we can only wait for the official announcement from Merge Labs. However, it can be speculated that Altman will not let Musk develop important technologies related to the "Singularity" alone.

OpenAI declined to comment on this matter.

Key Points:

- 🚀 Sam Altman is preparing a brain-computer interface company called Merge Labs, with an estimated valuation of $850 million.

- 🧠 Merge Labs will compete with Neuralink, founded by Musk, which is developing implantable brain-computer interfaces.

- 💬 The relationship between Altman and Musk is tense, and the two recently had a dispute on social media.