Take a dip at the Midjourney spa

If that headline raised an eyebrow, good instincts — you shouldn’t be derobing before asking a few questions.

But yes, Midjourney, the AI company behind viral images like a Balenciaga-clad Pope, is dipping its toe into the health and wellness space with its new division, Midjourney Medical, complete with a full-body scanner and a spa in San Francisco (the only place where such a thing could exist).

Let’s back up, shall we?

Allbirds might’ve pivoted from sneakers to AI, but Midjourney — in classic cool kid form — is pivoting away from it.

While it sounds like a Silicon Valley fever dream, Midjourney says its ultrasound-based scanner is nearly 100x faster than a typical MRI and can build a complete 3D map of the body.

The process also looks a whole lot different from your standard ultrasound or MRI procedure:

• Users step into a shallow pool and stand on a platform that slowly lowers through a ring of underwater sensors.
  
• The sensors send ultrasonic sound waves through your body from every angle, similar to how dolphins use echolocation.
  
• Computers analyze the wave patterns and reconstruct a 3D image of the body.

As if that wasn’t already a departure from your typical hospital visit, Midjourney plans to install its scanners into the hot tubs, saunas, and cold plunges in its spa, which it says will open next year and allow for 24/7 access.

The company has pretty lofty goals: It aims to have a fleet of 50k scanners worldwide by 2031, generating up to1B scans a month, no hospital gowns or grippy socks required.

Before you pick out your bathing suit…

There could be ramifications to having every millimeter of your insides scanned while looking over some SF founder’s pitch deck.

For one, we’ve written about the pitfalls of full-body scans in general, already offered by companies like Prenuvo, Neko, and Ezra. (False positives, unnecessary anxiety, and extra costs, to name a few.)

And medical professionals have their holdups, while science communicator Hank Green cautions against the comparison of Midjourney’s scanner to MRI tech.

So while lowering into a “shallow pool of golden light” sounds downright euphoric, maybe don’t dump your PCP just yet?