China Builds AI Nanny To Look After Baby Embryos In Artificial Womb

Chinese scientists from Suzhou in China¡¯s eastern Jiangsu province have developed an AI system that can monitor and take care of embryos as they grow into fetuses in an artificial womb.

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Reported first by SCMP, the AI nanny is designed to look after a large number of animal embryos as of now.

Researchers in the paper claim that the same technology could be used to eliminate the need for a woman to carry her baby for nine months, allowing her fetus to grow outside her body in a safe yet efficient way.

The device that¡¯s named ¡®long-term embryo culture device¡¯ is a container where they have mouse embryos growing inside cubes lined up, each filled with nutritious fluids.

In the initial stages, the development of each embryo had to be observed, documented and adjusted manually. However, now they've got an AI nanny that monitors the embryos in crazy detail.

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The AI helps the machine observe minutest changes on the embryos and finely tune the CO2, nutrition and environmental inputs. The system is also capable of ranking the embryos based on health and development potential.

If an embryo dies or suffers a defect, the machine would alert a technician to remove it from the system.

While all this seems too good to be true, it will have to overcome a ton of challenges to be acceptable -- current international laws don¡¯t allow experimental studies on human embryos beyond two weeks of development.

Experts however claim that the research on later stages is important as several mysteries still exist about the physiology of typical human embryonic development. They claim that this tech would help understand the origin of life as well as embryonic development, while also offering a way to solve birth defects and major reproductive health issues.

Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology

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This also comes at a time when China is seeing the slowest growth in population in decades, with more and more youngsters pushing the idea of bearing child amidst focus on career as well as high living costs in larger Chinese cities, and state incentives aren¡¯t of any help.

It¡¯ll be interesting to see if this system will ever see the level of progress and acceptance the researchers aim for, especially considering the nation has banned surrogacy, and any hospital delivering such a baby would have to bear the child¡¯s responsibility, something no hospital wishes to.

This idea is also surrounded by ethical and social concerns as well as psychological implications on the child.

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