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They say if technology can connect to those neurons at scale,

They're claiming that the results could be restoring abilities to people with disabilities, healthier mental states, deeper human connection, and entirely new ways to create alongside AI.

Now, to be honest, it feels kind of dystopian and terrifying, especially when you have a company like OpenAI, a massive company.

AI company interfacing directly into your brain it no longer is you know like there's something about Neuralink I think that was really creepy at the beginning and then it was like well maybe it's not that creepy because it's not just Google inside your brain like you can just think and you can you know like draw things without having arms or like you know and so kind of restored some of some function functionality that you didn't have and for some reason that seems normal to me

But all of a sudden with something like Merge Labs, I'm sure I'm the one that sounds crazy here.

Everyone's going to think this is super normal.

But like when all of a sudden you have this brain interface and you have ChatGPT inside your head and instead of going to ChatGPT.com and asking questions, you just think of the question and all of a sudden your brain fills it out.

Unlike existing brain interface companies, Merge Labs, they said that they want to avoid brain surgery altogether, which I am a huge advocate of.

I really hate putting something inside your physical brain.

So instead of implementing hardware, though, they said that they're going to develop new methods that communicate with neurons using molecules rather than electrodes.

So electrodes is when you have to do surgeries.

So they say that they are going to send and receive signals using things like ultrasound.

The science is still very early, but I think this kind of promise of a brain interface that works without opening up your skull is appealing to some people and maybe terrifying in other ways.

I think this investment is putting Sam Altman on a really direct collision course and competition with Elon Musk, who's also building a brain computer interface.

Neuralink's approach, I think, is a lot more invasive.

So far, it requires surgery, during which a robot removes a small piece of your skull and then they insert tiny wires into your brain to read neural signals.

Neuralink is currently focused on helping people with some really severe paralysis and it's helping them to control computers or devices using their thoughts.

They have raised $650 million last year to $9 billion valuation.

And they already have some really kind of high profile test cases where they've shown off.

People are actively using this and talking about it.