{"id":528,"date":"2025-10-31T10:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T02:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.itsmetoo.com\/?p=528"},"modified":"2025-11-10T14:35:58","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T06:35:58","slug":"mikhail-shapiro-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itsmetoo.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/31\/mikhail-shapiro-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Altman&#8217;s Non-Invasive BCI Bet: Shapiro Joins Merge Labs\u200b"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sam Altman, OpenAI\u2019s CEO, has recruited renowned biomolecular engineer Mikhail Shapiro\u2014winner of multiple prestigious awards\u2014to join Merge Labs, a startup focused on brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). Altman and co-founder Alex Blania will officially announce the company soon, with Altman serving as chairman but not involved in daily operations.\u200b<br>Merge Labs, reportedly seeking 250millioninfundingatan8.5 billion valuation, aims to develop non-invasive BCIs. Shapiro, a Caltech professor and HHMI fellow, specializes in using ultrasound and magnetic fields to image\/control cellular functions\u2014particularly brain interactions\u2014without invasive surgery (unlike Elon Musk\u2019s Neuralink). His work aligns with Altman\u2019s vision of \u201ccontrolling ChatGPT with thoughts\u201d sans implants.<br>Shapiro\u2019s research focuses on gene-modified ultrasound responses and non-invasive neuroimaging, earning him awards like the Vilcek Prize and Roger Tsien Award. He advocates simpler, gene-based ultrasound methods to interact with neurons. Altman has openly opposed Neuralink\u2019s invasive approach, stating, \u201cI\u2019d never implant anything that kills neurons.\u201d<br>Merge Labs, launching within weeks, mirrors Altman\u2019s past co-founder role (e.g., Tools for Humanity). The hire clarifies its tech direction: prioritizing non-invasive BCIs to potentially reshape human-machine interaction, contrasting sharply with Neuralink\u2019s surgical path.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sam Altman, OpenAI\u2019s CEO, has &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,6],"tags":[24,49,90,91,89,32],"class_list":["post-528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-companies","category-people","tag-ai","tag-altman","tag-bci","tag-iomolecular-engineer","tag-mikhail-shapiro","tag-openai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itsmetoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itsmetoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itsmetoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsmetoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsmetoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsmetoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":681,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsmetoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions\/681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsmetoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itsmetoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsmetoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsmetoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}