Sam Altman, Openai would be back a startup that will face Musk’s Neuralink

Sam Altman is co-founding a new brain interface startup on the computer called Merge Labs and collecting funds with the capital from the Openai Ventures team, nameless sources told Financial Times.

The startup is expected to be estimated at $ 850 million. A source familiar with the agreement tells Techcrunch that discussions are still early and that Openai has not yet committed to participating, so the terms could change.

Merge Labs will also work with Alex Blania, who directs tools for humanity (formerly World) – the digital identification project that has swept altman’s eyes which “allows anyone to check its humanity”, as the company describes it.

Merge Labs will compete with Elon Musk’s Neuralink, who develops computer interface chips designed to be located in the brain. Musk founded Neuralink in 2016 (although its existence is not known until 2017) and society has made serious progress.

Neuralink is Currently in the tests With people who suffer from a serious paralysis. It aims to allow them to control the devices with their thoughts. He collected a series of $ 600 million at $ 9 billion Evaluation in June.

Neuralink (and perhaps merge laboratories) could revolutionize how humans interact with technology. Some might even say that their technology could take humanity to “singularity”.

Long before Silicon Valley became obsessed with the concept of general artificial intelligence (AG), he was in love with “singularity”. Musk used the term Describe a moment when AI goes beyond human intelligence. The most classic definition (after a news from the 1960s of the same name Dino Buzzati) means the fusion of technology with humans.

Altman blog About “The Merge” in 2017. “Although the merger has already started, it will become much stranger. We will be the first species to have designed our own descendants, ”he applied at the time, citing research work he saw in Openai, where Musk was still co-founder.

Musk left Openai in 2018 and the relationship between the two technology chiefs has since disintegrated. Just this week, Altman and Musk bicker on X after Altman accused Musk to manipulate x and Musk called Altman a liar.

We will have to wait and see when and if the merger of the laboratories becomes officially announced. But it goes without saying that Altman was not going to let Musk work on something as important as singularity without challenging.

Openai refused to comment.