{"id":68747,"date":"2025-08-15T11:24:22","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T11:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/68747\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T11:24:22","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T11:24:22","slug":"the-race-to-link-our-brains-with-ai-inside-elon-musk-and-sam-altmans-battle-to-be-first-to-connect-mind-and-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/68747\/","title":{"rendered":"The race to link our brains with AI: Inside Elon Musk and Sam Altman’s battle to be first to connect mind and machine"},"content":{"rendered":"

The tussles between billionaires have seen vast fortunes splashed on everything from rocket ships to social media empires.<\/p>\n

But now, two titans of big tech are taking their fight to a frontier: The race to link our brains with AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tesla<\/a> and xAI CEO Elon Musk<\/a> and Sam Altman<\/a> of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT<\/a>, are vying to be the first to connect mind and machine.<\/p>\n

The former allies are now both backing rival companies trying to build brain-computer-interface (BCI) chips and put them inside humans.<\/p>\n

These devices allow people to directly control computers with their thoughts by reading the electrical signals produced in the brain.<\/p>\n

As outspoken champions of the technology, both Mr Musk and Mr Altman claim that BCIs will one day allow humanity to merge with artificial intelligence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Elon Musk’s Neuralink, widely seen as the leader in the BCI field, has already tested its brain chips on patients in the US<\/a> and has secured plans for UK trials.<\/a><\/p>\n

However, as reported by the Financial Times<\/a>, Mr Altman is now planning to back rival firm Merge Labs with a plan to make BCIs faster and more capable using AI.<\/p>\n

Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n

\"Elon <\/p>\n

Elon Musk’s company Neuralink has been the leader in the race to connect human brains and computers. But, he now has a new challenger in rival tech billionaire Sam Altman<\/p>\n

Not too long ago, Musk and Altman were close collaborators who co-launched OpenAI in 2015<\/a>, with Musk providing the majority of the funds.<\/p>\n

However, the pair fell out three years later after Musk dramatically quit the board following an internal battle for control over the fast-growing firm.<\/p>\n

In the following years, Musk and Altman have waged an increasingly public rivalry.<\/p>\n

This culminated in Musk suing OpenAI to prevent the company from transitioning into a for-profit<\/a>, alleging a ‘deceit of Shakespearean proportions’.<\/p>\n

As Musk attempts to challenge OpenAI’s supremacy in AI with his problem-plagued chatbot, Grok, the former colleagues are now shifting their rivalry into the world of BCIs.<\/p>\n

BCIs use AI to convert the patterns of electrical activity found in the brain into commands that a computer can understand.<\/p>\n

Advocates argue that they have the potential to help disabled people recover their independence by remotely controlling computers, bionic limbs, or mobility aids.<\/p>\n

This technology has even gained the attention of governments, with the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency exploring its potential as part of a mission to explore devices that could change the world.<\/p>\n

\"Sam <\/p>\n

Sam Altman is CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, and is reportedly backing a new brain-computer-interface (BCI) company called Merge Labs\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Elon <\/p>\n

Elon Musk (left) and Sam Altman (right) were previously close collaborators and co-founded OpenAI in 2015. However, the pair fell out after Elon Musk quit the board following an internal struggle for control\u00a0<\/p>\n

Likewise, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has revealed its own BCI, used to restore hand movement in paralysed patients.<\/p>\n

Neuralink, which was founded in 2016<\/a>, is leading the field for computer-brain connection research while rival startups, such as Precision Neuroscience, vie to compete.<\/p>\n

Neuralink uses a coin-sized computer chip containing 1,000 electrodes, separated into 128 tiny ‘threads’ each thinner than a human hair.<\/p>\n

Using a robotic surgeon, also being developed by Neuralink, the chip is placed on the surface of the brain<\/a>, and the threads are inserted into the neural tissue.<\/p>\n

The chip, known as the N1, uses these electrode threads to record huge amounts of data on the brain’s activity and uses AI to translate those signals.<\/p>\n

Neuralink began human trials in America last year, implanting a chip into its first human volunteer, Noland Arbaugh, who was paralysed from the neck down in a driving accident.<\/p>\n

Using the chip, Mr Arbaugh regained the ability to control a computer, enabling him to write, play chess, and even play complex video games.<\/p>\n

Since then, the company has implanted chips in a further six participants in the United States and recently received approval to recruit a further seven patients for a British study, the first of its kind in Europe.<\/p>\n

\"Neuralink <\/p>\n

Neuralink is leading the pack of companies investigating BCIs, having implanted a chip into its first human volunteer, Noland Arbaugh (pictured), last year\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Neuralink <\/p>\n

Neuralink has now implanted chips into seven patients in the United States, including Audrey Crews (pictured), who has been paralysed since she was 16<\/p>\n

Recently, the company raised $650 million (\u00a3478m) in a funding deal, which gave it a valuation of $9 billion (\u00a36.63bn).<\/p>\n

By contrast, very little is known about Mr Altman’s rival firm, Merge Labs.<\/p>\n

Mr Altman reportedly plans to launch the company alongside his long-term collaborator Alex Blania, who runs the Altman-backed eyeball scanning digital ID project, Worldcoin.<\/p>\n

It is expected that Mr Altman will help found the company, but won’t have a day-to-day role in its operations.<\/p>\n

The exact form of BCI technology Merge Labs plans to pursue remains a mystery; beyond the fact that it will make the most of recent AI advances to improve BCI function.<\/p>\n

Merge Labs is reportedly seeking $250 million (\u00a3184m) in initial funding, much of which is expected to be provided by OpenAI’s ventures arm, giving the company an initial valuation of $850 million (\u00a3625m).<\/p>\n

However, despite their rivalry, both Mr Musk and Mr Altman appear to be pursuing BCI technology with a similar goal in mind.<\/p>\n

Mr Musk has said that his ambition is to make a ‘general population device’ that will allow for ‘symbiosis with artificial intelligence’.<\/p>\n

\"Elon <\/p>\n

Elon Musk says that the Neuralink chip will one day allow humans and computers to merge, something he thinks is necessary for humanity to survive the advent of super-intelligent AI\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Sam <\/p>\n

Sam Altman wrote in a 2017 blog that merging with AI was the only way to avoid fading into an, ‘evolutionary tree branch’ as AI overtakes human intelligence\u00a0<\/p>\n

The billionaire X owner has also insinuated that merging with computers is necessary to prevent super-intelligent AI from getting out of control.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Mr Altman wrote in a 2017 blog post titled ‘The Merge’ that humans and machines would become one between 2025 and 2075.<\/p>\n

In the blog, Mr Altman wrote: ‘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.<\/p>\n

‘My guess is that we can either be the biological bootloader for digital intelligence and then fade into an evolutionary tree branch, or we can figure out what a successful merge looks like.’<\/p>\n

NEURALINK: ELON MUSK’S PLAY FOR COMPUTER-BRAIN INTERFACES<\/a><\/p>\n

Elon Musk’s Neuralink is working to link the human brain with a machine interface by creating micron-sized devices.<\/p>\n

Neuralink was registered in California as a ‘medical research’ company in July 2016, and Musk has funded the company mostly by himself.<\/p>\n

It is working on what Musk calls the ‘neural lace’ technology, implanting tiny brain electrodes that may one day upload and download thoughts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The technology is initially planned to be used to help people suffering from severe degenerative brain disorders such as ALS, but it could have wider uses in years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The tussles between billionaires have seen vast fortunes splashed on everything from rocket ships to social media empires.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,1921,97,995,7368,874,10108,124,86,1216,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-68747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-chatgpt","tag-dailymail","tag-elon-musk","tag-graphics","tag-openai","tag-sam-altman","tag-sciencetech","tag-technology","tag-tesla","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}