Descriptions:
Nathan and Picash open this episode of the Cognitive Revolution podcast by reacting to MidJourney’s surprise announcement of MidJourney Medical — a whole-body ultrasound scanning system that submerges subjects in water for a one-minute scan and produces highly detailed, visually striking 3D body imagery. The hosts discuss why David Holz’s choice to direct AI-boom wealth into medical imaging is significant, noting that healthcare represents 18% of the US economy and has historically resisted innovation due to FDA oversight, consent requirements, and privacy regulation. They frame the announcement as an example of how newly wealthy AI entrepreneurs may take on bets that traditional institutional investors cannot.
The conversation shifts to AI alignment and political economy, drawing on survey data showing that fewer than 2% of alignment researchers and fewer than 1% of effective altruists identify as politically right-of-center — and exploring the consequences for how safety arguments land with the Trump administration. The hosts reference Jonathan Haidt’s research on cross-partisan empathy failures and argue that the alignment community’s political homogeneity creates a structural communication problem as government becomes a larger actor in AI governance.
Additional topics include the thesis that early-stage AI ideas are systematically worse than ideas formed after sustained engagement with the technology, the concentration of AI capital in founders who will deploy it unconventionally, and the broader question of what positive visions for AI’s future look like and why they remain scarce.
📺 Source: Cognitive Revolution “How AI Changes Everything” · Published June 18, 2026
🏷️ Format: Podcast
