Will China abandon mothers? Artificial intelligence technology embraces and nurtures fetuses

Why do fetuses kick inside the womb?

Researchers in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province (eastern China) said that they have developed an artificial intelligence system that can monitor and care for fetuses as they grow into fetuses in an artificial womb environment, according to a report published by the "South China Morning Post" website.

The AI ​​breeder's capabilities to care for a large number of animal embryos are currently being tested, according to results published in the Reviewed Journal of Biomedical Engineering last month.

But experts say the same technology could eliminate the need for a woman to carry her baby, allowing the fetus to grow safely and more efficiently outside the mother's body, the paper says.

The artificial uterus, or "long-term embryo implantation device" is a container in which rat embryos grow in a line of cubes filled with nutrient fluid, says the team led by Professor Sun Haiquan at the Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology. ), of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Earlier, the process of developing each embryo had to be observed, documented and modified manually, a labor-intensive task that became unsustainable as the volume of research increased.

The paper says that the automated system, or 'nanny' that has been created, can monitor fetuses in unprecedented detail as they move up and down around the clock.

The artificial intelligence technology helps the device to detect the smallest signs of change on the embryos and fine-tunes the carbon dioxide, nutritional and environmental inputs. The system can also arrange the embryos according to their health and development capabilities, and when the fetus develops a major defect or dies, the machine alerts the technician to remove it from the uterine-like vessel.

It is worth noting that current international laws prohibit conducting experimental studies on human embryos, yet the research is in the advanced stages. This is significant because "there are many unsolved mysteries about the physiology of typical human embryonic development," Sun and colleagues say in their paper.

They added that this technology "will not only help understand the origin of life and embryonic development of humans, but will also provide a theoretical basis for resolving birth defects and other major reproductive health problems."

It comes as China faces a sharp decline in birth rates, the number of newborns has almost halved since 2016, and net population growth last year was the lowest in six decades, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Surveys show that young Chinese women are increasingly rejecting the traditional priorities of marriage and children, despite the easing of China's one-child policy and other government incentives.

Low birth rates are in fact a global concern, especially for developed societies. When SpaceX founder Elon Musk sparked a discussion on social media about "population collapse" two weeks ago, some tech experts suggested that a lab-made uterus was the best solution, as it would reduce the pain, risks, and cost of a woman's childbearing and maintaining her professional life.

Even on Chinese internet and social media platforms, there are increasing discussions on the issue of artificial womb technology and the possibility of using it to reverse the demographic trend.

The Suzhou researchers say their robot nanny is able to identify and track fetuses and take ultra-clear images of varying depth by quickly switching between different lenses.

The AI ​​technology also allows the machine to discover and learn from new phenomena that may remain unseen or neglected by humans, and this could accelerate “the improvement and replication of the long-term in vitro embryo culture technique,” ​​Sun and colleagues say in their paper.

The artificial uterus technology is not new, and it has developed rapidly in recent years. In 2019, a research team from the Institute of Zoology in Beijing took a fertilized monkey egg to the stage of organ formation in an artificial uterus, which is the first time an embryo has grown outside the mother's body.

The researcher, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, said the case would pose legal and ethical challenges in China and abroad.

Surrogacy is prohibited in China by law, and the artificial uterus technology will transform the hospital into a surrogate parent. "I don't think any hospital wants to take on this responsibility," the researcher said.

The mass production of babies inside an artificial womb may help sustain the population in a country where citizens are not keen on having children, but the social, psychological and ethical effects of such technology remain.