Elon Musk’s ongoing rivalry with Sam Altman and OpenAI is set to enter a new arena. The two will soon compete not only in the field of artificial intelligence but also in the burgeoning market of brain-computer interfaces.
According to a report from the Financial Times, Altman and OpenAI are backing a new venture named Merge Labs, which is focused on advancing brain implants. This positions them as direct competitors with Musk’s Neuralink.
Altman has expressed interest in this area for several years. In a blog post from 2017, he detailed his vision of “the merge” between humans and machines, which he linked to his endeavors at OpenAI:
The merge can take a lot of forms: We could plug electrodes into our brains, or we could all just become really close friends with a chatbot. But I think a merge is probably our best-case scenario.
