Sam Altman’s bold leap: Read your mind without surgery – OpenAI backed startup aims for thought-controlled AI

When Sam Altman says he wants to “think something and have ChatGPT respond to it”, he doesn’t mean some sort of dystopian sci-fi vision in the distant future. He means right now. Altman is reportedly investing in a secretive startup called Merge Labs, that plans to build an actual brain-computer interface (BCI) – based on sound waves and magnetic fields, not requiring any surgery or implants.

The Startup at the Heart of this Goal: Merge Labs

BCIs are a bold idea, with some major players already in the race. Neuralink, led by Elon Musk, is working on a BCI with surgically implanted electrodes. But Sam Altman himself made it very clear on Twitter, that he has no intention of putting anything into his brain. “I will not have anything go into my brain, at all. No bullets, no electrodes, no chips, no nothing. Killing my neurons sounds like an existential risk.” he said.

Enter Merge Labs, reportedly working on a BCI that would use ultrasound to interpret and interact with human thought. The new startup is reportedly using ultrasound and gene-engineering techniques being developed by researchers like Mikhail Shapiro of Caltech, and applying it to a consumer BCI. It works by tagging nerve cells with genetic material that makes them sensitive to sound waves. Think of it as a way to interact with your neurons, without drilling into your skull.

In effect: you can think a question or a prompt, and your AI assistant hears it — but not through voice or keyboard, through your brain directly. And without requiring surgery or implants. Altman has also noted that at least at first, this would be a “read-only” capability. The AI could understand your thoughts, not attempt to write into them.

The Funding and the Vision

Merge Labs is reportedly going for a big funding round, of US $250 million, through OpenAI’s venture capital arm. Altman may be a co-founder on paper but will not be involved in operations.

Altman has been vocal about his vision of this technology as the next frontier. In a recent post on Substack, he argued that the next “hard problem” won’t just be better AI software, but better AI hardware — and in particular an interface between the human brain and AI. “The goal is for you to just think and it happens.” he said.

Why Merge Labs’ approach could matter?

The big leap from using keyboards and microphones to using our own brains as an interface is both incredibly tantalizing and deeply challenging. It forces us to ask: how does it feel when technology goes from being something external that you use to something that is technically embedded within you?

From a technology standpoint, the approach being taken by Merge Labs could also be significant. Using ultrasound rather than surgery could mean a far lower barrier to entry, wider adoption, and potentially a faster path to scale. For the end user, it means an experience that’s equal parts awe and creepiness. Altman appears to understand both. “Maybe I want read-only. That seems reasonable”, he said in a recent interview.

But the path to a working product, even for a well funded startup, is fraught with scientific, engineering and regulatory challenges. Even if the idea is as game-changing as Altman says it is, there are many hurdles to go from prototype to product. Safety testing. Consent. Data protection. When you are talking about your brain, the stakes are amplified. Regulatory bodies such as the FDA and ethical bodies like national bioethics committees all enter the picture.

Merge Labs, for their part, remain shrouded in mystery. But the idea is now out there, with one of the world’s richest tech leaders very publicly driving the discourse.

The Future of Brain-Computer Interfaces

In years to come, we could see a shift from “tell your AI what to do” to “think your AI what to do” in certain settings. That’s Altman’s bet. If Merge Labs can deliver, we could be on the cusp of “silent conversations” between the brain and the machine. But we’re still very much at the very beginning of what promises to be one of the most audacious experiments in human-computer convergence. “It’s safer, there’s no surgery required, it’s sound-wave based, and it’s the thing we’ve been waiting for to make thought the interface.” As Altman put it, this is where we go from here.