What are the key takeaways from “Midjourney has a new side quest... death” on Fireship?

What concepts are explained?

• Ultrasonic CT: Ultrasonic CT is Midjourney Medical's proposed technology for internal body imaging. It works by immersing a person in water, using millions of tiny sensors to fire ultrasonic waves, and then employing Midjourney's AI to reconstruct detailed 3D images. This matters because it promises a 100x speed increase over MRIs and is designed to be cheap and accessible, potentially revolutionizing preventative healthcare by making scans routine.
• Midjourney Spa: Midjourney Spa is a radical approach to making medical imaging more palatable and accessible. By combining traditional spa amenities like hot tubs and saunas with their ultrasonic CT scanners, Midjourney aims to remove the intimidation and bureaucracy associated with medical tests. This changes the listener's perspective by envisioning health diagnostics as a routine, enjoyable activity rather than a dreaded appointment.
• Physics of Ultrasound Limitation: The physics of ultrasound dictate that sound waves are highly reflected by air and bone, preventing them from traveling through these tissues. This is a critical limitation for Midjourney's ultrasonic CT because it means areas like the lungs (air-filled) and the brain (protected by the skull) are largely invisible to the scanner. For the listener, this means the technology cannot replace comprehensive imaging for all body parts and certain critical diagnostics.
• AI Image Reconstruction: AI Image Reconstruction is Midjourney's core strength, which they are applying to the medical field. The ultrasonic CT generates terabytes of raw, ambiguous data from the sound waves. Midjourney's AI models are designed to process this complex input and reconstruct it into high-resolution, understandable medical images. This matters because it's the key to making the raw ultrasonic data diagnostically useful and overcomes the challenge of interpreting 'noisy' inputs effectively.

Notable quotes

“Midjourney got my attention last week when they announced their goal is to make a medical imaging device called ultrasonic CT that's cheap, fast, and accessible.”

— Fireship, “Midjourney has a new side quest... death”

“This creates terabytes of data per second about your insides, but reconstructing a coherent image from ambiguous noisy input is ironically the one thing Midjourney has spent years perfecting.”

— Fireship, “Midjourney has a new side quest... death”

“The pitch is that you show up for a relaxing day, dip into some water, maybe turn down some LSD from an early FTX employee, and the full body scan just sort of happens as a side effect.”

— Fireship, “Midjourney has a new side quest... death”

“So the current plan is that over the next year, they'll be refining the hardware, running research trials, and building out the first research spa before it opens at the end of 2027.”

— Fireship, “Midjourney has a new side quest... death”