> Medical experts have expressed skepticism about the technology's ability to replicate critical aspects of human gestation.
> They emphasize that current scientific understanding cannot duplicate complex biological processes such as maternal hormone secretion, immune system interactions, and the neurological development that occurs during natural pregnancy.
There is no way this works.
joak · 3h ago
One day, in a near future, most probably in this century, it will work.
Charon77 · 7h ago
Medically, very much not yet.
But business people sees projections rather than facts, it's probably easy to show them robots with TV in the belly showing babies forming and reeling in investment that way.
klipklop · 2h ago
I am fairly skeptical because of all the biological minutiae like hormonal responses that is important for the babies development. Also providing nutrition to it. Guess we will find out.
greazy · 7h ago
This is very much possible and has been for a number of years in the animal rearing
No, the Nature paper you link is a writeup of an experiment on a system for support of lambs relatively late in pregnancy being used for up to four weeks, as a model clearly intended to support further research on something similar for extremely premature human children to bridge them to a (still premature) developmental stage where there is less risk associated with delivery, not the equivalent of the conception to full-term system proposed in the article at the head of the thread.
RijilV · 52m ago
Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
Dig1t · 8h ago
The cost to have one child via surrogacy is about 200k right now. That is simply not an option for the vast majority of people. Some people go that much into debt just for the chance to have one child.
There is massive upside here, people who suffer from fertility problems could actually have a shot at having a child. Same goes for gay people.
Every technology is dual-use, but this one strikes me as absolutely worth it.
For people worried about baby factories: this is already possible via surrogacy with humans, especially is 3rd world countries. Yet it’s not a problem, there’s no evidence that evil billionaires want or need to grow an army of slaves via surrogates. You still have to get sperm and eggs from a woman (the hardest part honestly, it can take many rounds under anesthesia to get enough for just a few viable eggs) and that is already a well regulated process. If you are an evil billionaire and want an army of slaves you are much better off just buying robots and paying some already alive adult humans to do your bidding.
didibus · 7h ago
Like with most technologies of this sort, I think it's often a matter of how well does it work.
But is it even ethical here to attempt to develop this? How many failed attempts does it take to refine it?
If the tech can magically spawn of nowhere and create totally healthy at birth and later in life children, I'm sure people will get used to the idea of it.
But the path to get there seems unethical.
BriggyDwiggs42 · 2h ago
Judging by similar things like stem cells or cloning, if it causes serious issues for even a small number of children, it will turn public opinion against the tech overnight.
dyauspitr · 8h ago
I’m very skeptical that this will work. But if it does, holy shit, we’re going to have mass produced, factory humans. Hell, billionaires could grow their own slaves with no legal trail or footprint.
> They emphasize that current scientific understanding cannot duplicate complex biological processes such as maternal hormone secretion, immune system interactions, and the neurological development that occurs during natural pregnancy.
There is no way this works.
But business people sees projections rather than facts, it's probably easy to show them robots with TV in the belly showing babies forming and reeling in investment that way.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15112
There is massive upside here, people who suffer from fertility problems could actually have a shot at having a child. Same goes for gay people.
Every technology is dual-use, but this one strikes me as absolutely worth it.
For people worried about baby factories: this is already possible via surrogacy with humans, especially is 3rd world countries. Yet it’s not a problem, there’s no evidence that evil billionaires want or need to grow an army of slaves via surrogates. You still have to get sperm and eggs from a woman (the hardest part honestly, it can take many rounds under anesthesia to get enough for just a few viable eggs) and that is already a well regulated process. If you are an evil billionaire and want an army of slaves you are much better off just buying robots and paying some already alive adult humans to do your bidding.
But is it even ethical here to attempt to develop this? How many failed attempts does it take to refine it?
If the tech can magically spawn of nowhere and create totally healthy at birth and later in life children, I'm sure people will get used to the idea of it.
But the path to get there seems unethical.