Real-Time Technocracy
Each year, around 300,000 women die from pregnancy or complications shortly afterward.
But that’s not all, “We know that the constraints of the human uterus and pelvis have acted as a brake on the size of the human brain and skull. If freed from the need to be ‘born’ in the normal way, we might open the way for a new evolutionary trajectory,” says 'Dr. Anna Smajdor', associate professor of practical philosophy at the University of Oslo.
The 'World Health Organization' (WHO) estimates that 15% of reproductive-aged couples worldwide are affected by infertility. Indeed, over the last 70 years, fertility rates worldwide have decreased by a staggering 50%.
Reasons for this decline include (among other) women’s increased education, increases in employment, the high cost of raising children, and most concerning, a drop in global sperm count.
For nearly a century, fertility rates have been decreasing globally. The result is what scientists are describing as a “worldwide infertility crisis.”
“We should be much more worried about population collapse… If there aren’t enough people for Earth, then there definitely won’t be enough for Mars” said 'Elon Musk'.
In 2017, scientists created a “BioBag” that functioned as an artificial womb, and they used it to grow baby lambs. The scientists behind the work grew eight fetal lambs for 105 to 120 days — about equivalent to human fetuses at 22 to 24 weeks of gestation.
Then in March 2021, another milestone was achieved, Israeli scientists were able to grow mouse embryos for up to eleven days inside artificial wombs. What is remarkable about that achievement is that 11 days is over half of the full mouse gestational term.
“We should be investing in technology that makes having kids much faster/easier/cheaper/more accessible. Synthetic wombs, etc.” says 'Sahil Lavingia', CEO of Gumroad, a self-publishing digital marketplace platform.
A new concept has been unveiled showing how the same could be done for humans. In recently released footage, 'Hashem Al-Ghaili', a Yemeni molecular biotechnologist, and science communicator, showed what childbirth might look like tomorrow. A concept that could one day supplant traditional birth and could ultimately make miscarriage a thing of the past. His “EctoLife” artificial womb concept promises to help babies develop full-term (without any biological hurdles).
In so doing, society would finally be able to meet the needs of parents who are “tired of waiting for a response from an adoption agency”, and those who are “worried about pregnancy complications”, but most importantly, confront the infertility crisis head-on.
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Synthetic wombs might sound like the stuff of science fiction, but they follow in a long line of advancements in reproductive technology.
On July 25, 1978, a baby girl named Louise Brown was born at Oldham and District General Hospital in Manchester, England. What made her birth memorable was that Louise was conceived in a petri dish, and she is the first baby conceived through “In Vitro Fertilization” (IVF).
Today, more than 8 million children are conceived through IVF annually.
Cloning or not, the envisioned EctoLife concept makes extensive use of 'Artificial Intelligence' (AI), with one of its uses being to provide each baby with custom nutrients tailored to their needs. Another use of AI would be to monitor the physical features of your baby and report any potential abnormalities for deviations from normal gestation.
Cameras and sensors would offer parents a constant video feed of their baby’s development, allowing them to monitor their child’s progress on their smartphones, while, speakers could be used to play a wide range of words and music to the baby, mimicking the sounds that babies hear while in their mothers’ wombs. Parents could even choose the playlist or play their own voices, so their child gets more used to them, and once a baby reaches full maturity, the birth process can be done with just the push of a button, which, will cause the faux amniotic fluid to drain from the growth pod.
The impact on humanity could be profound!
The 'Assistive Reproduction Technology' (ART), market is already large, and it is only getting larger. Venture capital is taking notice of this growing trend, with the ART sector expected to reach $54.7 billion by 2028. By mid-July 2022, fertility start-ups had already received over $500 million, marking the ART sector as one that may be impervious to any pending recession.
In his play “The Tempest”, 'William Shakespeare' wrote: “How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in ‘t!”
'Aldous Huxley' used that phrase as the title of his 1932 dystopian novel “Brave New World”, which, explored such themes as the dangers of genetic engineering and the use of technology to control society…
Food for thought!