EP 071 · 85 MIN YOUR PROMPTS FUNDED A BODY SCANNER
Midjourney's Wildest Move Yet: Full Body Medical Scans.
The short version
Rory Flynn and Drew Brucker react to Midjourney founder David Holz revealing Midjourney Medical, a bootstrapped, water-based ultrasonic full-body scanner built as an MRI alternative and funded entirely by image-generation subscriptions. They also cover Claude's 'Fable' model getting restricted to US users after reportedly drawing government attention, and how AI adoption has spread from designers and copywriters to the 3D and VFX teams who resisted it longest.
Key takeaways
- 01
Midjourney revealed a full-body, water-based ultrasonic scanner that maps the body in about 60 seconds, positioned as a bootstrapped MRI alternative with zero outside investors.
- 02
The scanner will roll out through a San Francisco spa rather than hospitals first, sidestepping medical regulation while David Holz's team pursues eventual FDA-level imaging.
- 03
Only nine or ten people built the scanner, out of a company Drew estimates at roughly 100, meaning most of Midjourney still works purely on images.
- 04
Claude's 'Fable' model one-shot Rory's Blender and CAD fixes in minutes at a fraction of Opus 4.8's token cost, then got restricted after government pressure.
- 05
Rory now runs Magnific and Higgsfield through their MCPs directly inside Claude chat, chaining his own skills so prompting, generating and varying images happens in one place.
- 06
One enterprise client Rory works with grew from a handful of AI users to company-wide adoption, backed by cash bonuses for employees who build useful AI workflows.
- 07
Rory's pick from a '12 possible futures of AI' video: a stalemate where AI only deters rival AI, like nuclear weapons, with no benefits ever arriving.
Receipts · said on the record
“We were part of the plan. Like we were part of the plan to raise the money to do this.”
“Did I think I'd see a mid journey spa before I saw a mid journey image editor? No.”
“It was doing what would normally take me a number of iterations in one shot. And then the speed, things that were take thirty minutes were taking ten.”
“Fable alone is like a short fictitious story designed to teach a moral lesson. And it's like, yo, that was kinda weird that they called it fable, you know?”
“if anything is deemed a national security risk, which is the most ambiguous thing of all time, which could be anything, it's just like they have the right to to either seize it or shut it down.”
“I love when when you dig into stuff. Because like it's like it one at a certain point there becomes this threshold of too many coincidences are smoke, you know.”
Chapters
- 0:00:00 Knicks, World Cup, and viral tourism
- 0:10:14 Sports, culture, and AI gatherings
- 0:13:06 Midjourney reveals secret hardware
- 0:15:49 David Holz explains the bigger mission
- 0:18:27 The 60-second full-body medical scanner
- 0:20:18 How bootstrapping made this possible
- 0:23:26 Water, spas, and medical skepticism
- 0:28:56 The scanner demo and nine-person team
- 0:40:30 Midjourney’s bigger secret roadmap
- 0:48:11 How brand AI adoption has changed
- 0:58:57 Claude Fable 5 appears, then vanishes
- 1:00:41 Inside the Fable 5 conspiracy corner
- 1:04:48 Why Fable 5 felt revolutionary
- 1:13:58 The AI race and 12 possible futures
- 1:18:22 Four years of Midjourney and the outro
Questions this episode answers
What did Midjourney reveal on Fast Hours episode 71?
Founder David Holz revealed Midjourney Medical and a hardware prototype: a water-based, full-body ultrasonic scanner that captures a 3D body map in about 60 seconds, pitched as a future MRI alternative. It's bootstrapped with no outside investors and will first roll out through a wellness spa rather than a hospital.
What happened to Claude's 'Fable' model in this episode?
Rory says Fable dramatically sped up his Blender and CAD fixing work, one-shotting tasks that normally took much longer on Opus 4.8, before it was restricted to US users days later following what the hosts describe as a government directive, which they spend part of the episode speculating about.
Is Midjourney moving away from image generation?
No. Drew and Rory stress the scanner is an expansion, not a pivot: only about nine or ten of Midjourney's roughly 100 employees worked on it, and the company says it's still investing in image models and its long-awaited edit model.
How has brand adoption of AI changed, according to Fast Hours?
Rory says resistance faded industry by industry, hitting copywriters and graphic designers first, then video, 3D and VFX teams, and that most of his pitches no longer need to justify AI's value, just how to use it responsibly without overspending on tokens.
What is the 'nuclear arms race' future of AI discussed on the show?
Rory describes one scenario from a video on 12 possible AI futures, where AI development exists only to deter rival nations' AI, similar to nuclear deterrence, with no new benefits or breakthroughs ever actually reaching people.
Show notes
Midjourney spent years helping people generate impossible images. Then it used that image money to build a machine designed to look inside the human body.
In Episode 71, Drew Brucker and Rory Flynn, two men with zero medical degrees and a medically concerning level of confidence, unpack Midjourney Medical and David Holz’s surprise hardware reveal. At the center is the Midjourney Scanner, a water-based, full-body Ultrasonic CT prototype designed to capture detailed 3D body maps in roughly 60 seconds.
They break down how the scanner uses sound waves, water, and serious computing power; why Midjourney plans to introduce it through a San Francisco spa; and how a bootstrapped company with no investors can make a bet this strange. They also separate the scanner’s current body-composition ambitions from the much bigger MRI-level future Midjourney hopes to pursue through research, testing, and FDA approval.
Then the episode gets even less normal.
Claude Fable 5 appears, dramatically accelerates Rory’s coding, Blender, and MCP workflows, and disappears days later following a US government directive. Naturally, this sends the hosts directly into Conspiracy Corner with no adult supervision.
Along the way, Drew and Rory explore how brand adoption of AI has changed, why some of the most advanced commercial AI work stays hidden behind NDAs, how companies can reward employees for useful AI innovation, and why first-time reaction content remains one of the internet’s strongest viral formats.
Is Midjourney’s full-body scanner a medical breakthrough, an ambitious wellness experiment, or the first clue to a much larger hardware roadmap? The hosts attempt to answer that question while also discussing the World Cup, the Knicks, government intervention, possible AI futures, and several topics their wives wisely avoid asking them about.
