Sam Altman and Elon Musk face off in race to link our brains with AI
Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, was once an ally of Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX boss. Now the former partners are preparing to face off in the fast-developing field of brain–computer interfaces (BCIs).
These systems typically use artificial intelligence to translate brain activity into commands a computer can follow. They have enabled people with paralysis to control devices using only their thoughts. Advocates believe BCIs will one day allow humans to merge with advanced AI.
Musk's company, Neuralink, began testing its technology on patients in the US last year and recently gained approval for a trial in Britain, its first in Europe. Altman is now backing a rival, Merge Labs, which aims to harness recent advances in AI to make BCIs faster and more capable, according to the Financial Times.
In 2015 the pair launched OpenAI together when Musk provided much of the capital to launch the venture. They fell out three years later when Musk quit the board after disputes over how it would operate.
Since then, they have built competing AI empires while publicly trading barbs Musk attempted to block OpenAI's transformation from a non-profit entity to a profit-seeking business.
BCIs are drawing interest from governments as well as tech moguls. In the UK, the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria), a government body, is exploring their potential as part of a broader mission to fund science that could change the world. In China, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has unveiled its own BCI device, Neo, intended to restore hand movement in paralysed patients.
Neuralink is widely seen as being at the forefront of the field. Its coin-sized implant is designed to sit inside a small opening in the skull, with flexible electrode 'threads' extending into the brain to monitor the electrical activity of cells. An AI system then decodes those signals into information that can be used to control external devices. The company is also developing a surgical robot to carry out the procedure.
Last year it implanted a device in its first human volunteer, Noland Arbaugh, who was paralysed from the shoulders down in a diving accident. Using the implant, he was able to move a computer cursor and play video games, an experience he likened to 'using the force' in a nod to Star Wars.
While striking, this was not the first demonstration of a mind-driven technology. In the early 2000s, American scientists showed that monkeys implanted with neural interfaces could control robotic limbs through their thoughts.
Human trials since then have allowed paralysed people to send emails, make purchases online and operate robotic devices — all without physical movement. In some cases, BCIs have been used to send information back towards the brain — allowing, for instance, a paralysed person to regain a sense of touch through a robotic hand.
Musk said he wanted to go much further, including restoring sight to the blind and enabling quadriplegics to regain 'full-body functionality' — goals many researchers say could be decades away, if they are achievable at all. His ultimate ambition is a mass-market 'general population device' linking human minds directly to powerful computers, allowing 'symbiosis with artificial intelligence'. One industry figure who has discussed the matter with Musk said he viewed this as necessary to prevent superhuman AI from running out of control.
Altman seems to share a similar long-term vision. In a blog post this year he wrote that 'high-bandwidth brain–computer interfaces' were on the horizon.
Neuralink, which was founded in 2016, recently raised $650 million in a deal that valued the company at $9 billion. Altman, who had previously invested in the company, now appears to be positioning Merge Labs to challenge it directly.
According to the Financial Times, Merge Labs is seeking funding at a valuation of about $850 million, with OpenAI's ventures arm expected to provide a large portion of an initial $250 million round. Altman is expected to help launch the project alongside Alex Blania, who runs Worldcoin, an eyeball-scanning digital ID project also backed by the OpenAI chief
Neuralink said last month that it had received regulatory and ethics approvals to begin its first clinical study in the UK. The GB-Prime trial will be run at University College London Hospitals and Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It will test the company's BCI in people with severe paralysis. The trial will involve patients with conditions such as motor neurone disease, spinal cord injuries and other neurological disorders, assessing whether they can use the device to control computers and other digital systems by thought alone.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
3 minutes ago
- Reuters
Kenvue attracts share purchase by activist investor Sachem Head
NEW YORK, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Band-Aid and Tylenol maker Kenvue (KVUE.N), opens new tab attracted the attention of another activist investor in the second quarter, with Sachem Head Capital Management reporting that it bought into the stock. Sachem, run by Scott Ferguson, said in a regulatory filing on Thursday that it owned 10.6 million shares in the consumer healthcare company on June 30. According to the filing, Kenvue was the firm's fourth biggest holding at the end of the quarter after Twilio (TWLO.N), opens new tab, Talen Energy (TLN.O), opens new tab and Seagate Technology Holdings (STX.O), opens new tab. Sachem Head declined to comment. The firm is known to quietly push for changes behind the scenes at certain companies, although it mounted a noisy proxy fight at US Foods Holding (USFD.N), opens new tab three years ago. Kenvue, which was spun out of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N), opens new tab and now has a market value of $40 billion, has faced some of the industry's most prominent activists, including Starboard Value, Third Point and Toms Capital Investment Management, in its two years as a publicly traded company. In July, Kenvue's board fired CEO Thibaut Mongon, laying the path for what investors said they hope and expect will be the eventual sale of the company. Investors have long complained about Kenvue's sluggish share price, which drifted down 1% this year, closing at $21.06 on Thursday. Starboard was among the first to publicly press Kenvue to review how it positions its brands and how they are priced to help boost performance. The hedge fund settled its proxy fight with the company in March when Kenvue agreed to appoint three new directors, including Starboard CEO Jeffrey Smith. Starboard, in a filing on Thursday, said it cut its Kenvue investment by 5.10% to 21 million shares. But Toms Capital Investment Management, which has urged the company to consider strategic alternatives, raised its holding during the second quarter to 16 million shares, from 14.4 million shares at the end of the first quarter. Third Point, run by billionaire investor Daniel Loeb, bought into Kenvue during the first quarter but made no changes in the second quarter, to own 8.5 million shares on June 30. Investment managers are required to tell regulators how much stock they owned in U.S. companies at the end of each quarter in 13F filings. While the filings are backward looking, other investors watch them closely for hints on trends, including suggestions of which companies activist investors might be targeting.
The Independent
33 minutes ago
- The Independent
Temporary barriers spared Alaska's capital from severe flooding. A long-term solution is elusive
The glacial flooding that sent residents of Alaska 's capital city scrambling this week has become an annual ordeal for those who live along the picturesque river that winds from the nearby Mendenhall Glacier. This year, a giant wall of reinforced sandbags erected with the help of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers held back the worst of the flooding in Juneau, to residents' great relief. The damage was nothing like what happened the last two years, when flooding was rampant and some homes washed away. But the wall is merely a temporary barrier. The effort to devise a permanent solution is complicated by what scientists don't yet know about how human-caused global warming will impact the yearly outbursts of water from an ice dam at the glacier. Juneau is just one of many communities around the globe struggling to engineer a way out of the worst damage from climate change. 'We can't keep doing this,' said Ann Wilkinson Lind, who lives on the banks of the Mendenhall River. 'We need a levee or some other permanent fix. ... This is an emergency situation that can't take 10 years for this study and that study and every other study. It needs to be done now.' The Mendenhall Glacier is about 12 miles (19 kilometers) from Juneau, home to 30,000 people in southeast Alaska, and is a popular tourist attraction due to its proximity and easy access on walking trails. Homes on the city's outskirts are within miles of Mendenhall Lake, which sits below the glacier, and many front the Mendenhall River. The glacial outburst flooding from the Mendenhall is itself a phenomenon caused by climate change, which is thinning glaciers around the world. A glacier nearby retreated, leaving behind a large bowl — Suicide Basin — that fills each spring and summer with rainwater and snowmelt dammed by the Mendenhall. When that water builds up enough pressure, it forces its way under or around the ice dam, enters Mendenhall Lake, and flows down the Mendenhall River toward Juneau. Flooding from the basin has been an annual concern since 2011 and has gotten worse, with new water-level records being set each of the last three years. City officials responded this year by working with state, federal and tribal entities to install the temporary barrier along roughly 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) of riverbank. The 10,000 'Hesco' barriers are essentially giant, reinforced sandbags intended to protect more than 460 properties, said emergency manager Ryan O'Shaughnessy. The Juneau Assembly required homeowners in the flood zone to cover 40% of the barrier's cost — about $6,300 each over 10 years. Additionally, a handful of homeowners were asked to chip in $50,000 toward reinforcing the river bank. About one-quarter of the residents formally objected, not enough to torpedo the project. This week, some water seeped between the bastions or through pipes underneath them that are designed to allow water to drain from yards into the river. Valves in the pipes are supposed to prevent floodwater from entering. But officials uniformly called the project a success, while acknowledging that some homes were damaged and that the barrier needs to be further extended. The barriers are designed to last for up to 10 years to allow time for a long-term solution. But questions abound. The capacity of Suicide Basin seems to be growing, and scientists aren't sure what a worst-case flood might look like. They predict that within a few decades, the Mendenhall itself will retreat far enough that it no longer acts as a dam, eliminating the risk of a flood outburst from Suicide Basin. But the persistent melting could also form other glacially dammed lakes that could function in a similar way. 'There's still a lot to be learned,' said Nate Ramsey, Juneau's engineering and public works deputy director. 'We have to assume this will be an annual event for the next many, many years. Is something like a temporary, soil-filled basket levy the best we can do over that period of time? ... We've got to keep looking for a long-term solution.' The Army Corps of Engineers has nearly $5 million set aside to begin working on a long-term solution, which for now largely consists of data collection. 'It's like trying to solve a math problem when the variables are always changing,' Army Corps Brig. Gen. Clete Goetz said Thursday. 'Seeing the problem is not the hard part. Engineering the solution is the challenge. That's what we're here for.' ___ Johnson and Attanasio reported from Seattle. Rush reported from Portland, Oregon.
The Independent
33 minutes ago
- The Independent
Faith-based activist groups celebrate after Costco bails on selling abortion pill
Costco has opted not to dispense abortion pills after receiving demands from activists on both sides of the issue — and faith-based groups are celebrating the move. Last year, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander urged the retail giant to get a certification to be able to dispense mifepristone — one drug in a two-drug regimen for medication abortions — at its pharmacies. The following month a religious coalition pleaded with Costco not to sell the termination pill. The FDA allows only certified prescribers to dispense mifepristone. Costco chose to forego pursuing this certification, the company said in a statement to Reuters emphasizing the decision was based on a lack of consumer demand. "Our position at this time not to sell mifepristone, which has not changed, is based on the lack of demand from our members and other patients, who we understand generally have the drug dispensed by their medical providers,' the company said. Bloomberg first reported Costco's decision. The Independent has reached out to Costco for more information about its decision. Representatives on both sides of the abortion debate have battled over Costco's position in the form of letters. Last July, Lander penned a letter to CEO Ron Vachris demanding the retailer 'immediately take the necessary steps to receive certification' to sell mifepristone, following in the steps of CVS and Walgreens. The comptroller also wrote letters to the leaders of Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons, and McKesson. 'By failing to become certified mifepristone dispensers, these pharmacy giants put both women's reproductive health care and investors' money at risk,' he said in a statement at the time. In August 2024, a coalition of religious activists wrote to Vachris, urging Costco to 'continue its current practice of not dispensing the abortion drug mifepristone.' The group argued that dispensing the drug will reduce demand for the diapers and formula that the store sells and worsen the 'the crisis of record low birth rates.' The letter also alleged the pill poses 'serious health risks.' The FDA first approved the drug in 2000 to end pregnancy through 10 weeks of gestation, but anti-abortion activists have recently challenged its safety and FDA approval. Last year, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled to preserve access to the crucial drug, as nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the U.S. — 63 percent — are medication abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute. 'Costco's decision to refuse to dispense mifepristone is disappointing and short-sighted,' a spokesperson for Lander told The Independent in a statement. Failure to provide access to proven safe and FDA-approved medication under the guise of 'weak demand' risks isolating customers and undermines the company's credibility. Putting customer needs before political ideology must remain Costco's priority.' Faith-based activists have celebrated the decision. 'We applaud Costco for doing the right thing by its shareholders and resisting activist calls to sell abortion drugs,' Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Counsel Michael Ross said in a statement Thursday. 'They have nothing to gain and much to lose by becoming abortion dispensaries.' 'We have this momentum,' Tim Schwarzenberger, director of corporate engagement at Inspire Investing, the world's largest faith-based ETF provider, told Bloomberg. 'Now there is a chance to turn to some of the other retailers.' 'We are so grateful that Costco—a company that serves families, especially large ones—has decided to remain a wholesale store, not become an abortion facility,' Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at evangelical think-tank Family Research Council, said in a statement on X. 'What a win for America! Great job, @Costco!" CVS and Walgreens, which both dispense the drug, have stood by their decisions in the wake of Costco's announcement. 'We have a long history of supporting and advancing women's health and we remain focused on meeting their unique health needs. This includes providing access to safe, legal, and evidence-based reproductive health services,' CVS told The Independent in a statement, noting that the company fills prescriptions in states where it's legal. Walgreens declined to comment. Its website states: "The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on mifepristone access allows Walgreens to continue to dispense mifepristone under the FDA guidelines.' The abortion landscape has been complicated after the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022. In January 2023, the FDA removed some restrictions around accessing mifepristone and added the pharmacy certification. Individuals living in states that have banned the procedure cannot access the drug at pharmacies; 12 states have total abortion bans, according to Guttmacher Institute. The 2022 Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe has opened the door for abortion opponents to argue fresh legal challenges. Earlier this year, anti-abortion activists pushed a report by right-wing think tank Ethics and Public Policy Center claiming serious complications from mifepristone use were 22 times higher than previously reported. Critics blasted the report as 'bogus.'
