Midjourney wants to map your body in 60 seconds and then send you to a sauna

· Business Insider

Midjourney says it's getting into healthcare. Since its scanners will dip users into water, it says it's building a coordinating spa.

Midjourney

  • Midjourney, the image-generating AI lab, is making a bold move into healthcare.
  • It said its new tech will immerse users in water, where sensors will scan their bodies.
  • Medical and science experts are cautious about the ultrasound tech.

Midjourney, the AI lab best known for image generation, has announced an unexpected healthcare project: an underwater, full-body scanner.

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Medical experts are expressing caution about what the scans could reliably show — and how consumers might use them.

"Today we're gonna announce something a little weird and a little crazy, but also spectacular and filled with hope," the company wrote in a Wednesday blog post.

It's called "Midjourney Medical." The plan is centered on an ultrasound scanner that the lab says could eventually make internal body imaging fast, routine, and more consumer-friendly.

According to Midjourney's blog post, the scanner would lower users — via an "elevator" — into a tub of water, where a ring of sensors would send ultrasonic waves through the body from multiple angles. The sensors act, as the company put it, "like a dolphin," using echolocation.

Midjourney says prototypes of the system have generated 3D maps of the body in 60 seconds. The company said it will supply users with data to "become more aware of our health" and "improve our lifestyles." It calls the system "as powerful as MRI, and as casual as a trip to the spa."

And, since users will already be wet, Midjourney says it's building an accompanying spa for its San Francisco location. The spa — complete with hot tubs, saunas, and cold plunges — is set to open by 2027.

Midjourney did not say if the healthcare project would refocus its core image-generation business model.

In conversations with Business Insider, radiologists raised concerns that frequent full-body scanning can lead to incidental findings, false positives, anxiety, and unnecessary follow-up care if results are not interpreted in a clinical context.

The US Preventive Services Task Force, for example, recommends preventive scanning services when evidence shows a high or moderate net benefit. Put simply, finding more things in the body is not always helpful.

Silicon Valley reacts

Elon Musk wrote that it was "cool" in a post on X. Ben Parr, the COO of Moltbook, said he tested out the tech and saw inside his arm.

Hank Green, a YouTuber and science communicator, had a more mixed reaction to the tech.

In an X blog post, he wrote that he had "some frustrations" with how Midjourney promoted the product, and said that while ultrasound may be promising, it is not a replacement for MRI, CT, colonoscopy, or other scans.

"If you walk away from this post with anything in your head let it be this...different scans do different things," Green wrote. "We still have all the ones we have because they all fill in gaps that other scans don't have. Adding another full-body scan does not replace any of the others, but I very much hope that it adds."

Midjourney says the project is progressing at "maximum speed that's physically possible," but notes potential speed bumps.

First is scaling. The company said it hopes to build 50,000 scanners worldwide by 2031. Second is regulatory approval. Midjourney said it is starting with "detailed body composition maps" and plans to submit test results to the FDA for expanded capabilities.

Midjourney didn't immediately respond to Business Insider's questions about billing, health data storage, or how the technology uses AI.

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