China developing “pregnancy robots”


China is developing “pregnancy robots” with artificial wombs that could soon carry and deliver human babies. The breakthrough promises hope for infertile couples – but raises major questions about ethics, safety, and the future of reproduction.

You can date your bot, marry it, and now it can carry your child in an artificial womb, thanks to engineers in China who have designed an automaton to deliver the goods.

In what could be a paradigm shift for infertile couples, the invention will be able to carry a fetus for up to ten months.

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Dr. Zhang Qifeng, founder of Kaiwa Technology in Guangzhou, China, mentioned that the prototype could be available next year.

The cost of such a process would be just shy of $14,000 – significantly cheaper than a human surrogate, which costs anywhere between $100,000 and $200,000.

What remains puzzling is how fertilization will happen, how the embryo will enter the womb, and how exactly the bot will give birth to a child.

Other unknowns include how the robot’s womb will mimic the natural environment – temperature, hormones, and immune protection.

It’s also unclear whether more than one pregnancy could be carried at a time.

A robot birth auction.
Image by Cybernews

The development raises ethical questions about the survival of the human race and the reproduction rate of the general population.

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Some warn it could further commodify childbirth, turning reproduction into a service industry, as one user pondered on X,“what’s to stop the rich elites just farming babies to sell?”

Others raise fears of a class divide – tech-driven fertility options for the wealthy, while others are left behind.

One user took to social media to unpack the reasoning for the future, taking a sci-fi approach by pointing out that countries with collapsing birthrates, like China, Japan, and South Korea, are desperate to repopulate.

Furthermore, countries like this could “replace conscription with manufactured loyalty, start them with engineered physiology and loyalty coding.”

Separate from the technological angle is the guardianship issue: who is the legal mother and father, and who should be at fault if negligence occurs?

Globally, other countries such as the US and Japan are already testing artificial wombs for premature babies – but not yet for full pregnancies.

This could ignite a reproductive tech race as populations shrink worldwide.

Marcus Walsh profile Niamh Ancell BW justinasv Izabelė Pukėnaitė
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