Chinese scientists create AI nanny to care for babies in artificial wombs

An artificial womb for safe fetal growth and a robot nanny that monitors and cares for it. Chinese scientists believe anything is possible if it can become a breakthrough for childbirth in a country where the birth rate is now the lowest in decades. Provided the law allows the use of such technology.

Researchers from Suzhou in China's eastern Jiangsu province said they developed an artificial intelligence system that can monitor and care for embryos as they develop into fetuses in an artificial womb environment.

This AI nanny is currently looking after a large number of animal embryos. But the same technology could spare women from having to carry a child, allowing the fetus to grow more safely and efficiently outside the body.

The artificial womb, or "long-term embryo culture device," is a container in which mouse embryos grow in a line of cubes filled with nutrient fluids, the team led by Professor Sun Haixuan of the Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology said.

Previously, the development of each embryo had to be observed, documented and adjusted manually, a labor-intensive task that became unbearable as research scaled up. The robotic system, or "nanny," now created can track embryos with unprecedented accuracy as they move up and down the line around the clock.

The AI technology helps the machine detect the slightest signs of change in embryos and precisely adjust carbon dioxide, nutrition and environmental exposure. The system can even rank embryos by health and developmental potential. When an embryo develops a serious defect or dies, the machine alerts a technician to remove it from the womb-like vessel.

Current international laws prohibit experimental research on human embryos after two weeks of development. Nevertheless, research at later stages is important, because "there are still many unsolved mysteries of the physiology of typical human embryonic development," the professor and his colleagues wrote in their paper.

This technology "will not only help us better understand the origins of life and human embryonic development, but also provide a theoretical basis for addressing congenital defects and other serious reproductive health problems.

This comes amid a sharp decline in birth rates in China: the number of newborns has nearly halved over the five years since 2016. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the net population growth in 2021 was the lowest in six decades.

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

In fact, low birth rates are a global problem, especially for developed countries. When SpaceX founder Elon Musk recently sparked debate on social media about "demographic collapse," some tech gurus suggested the lab womb as the best solution, since it would reduce the pain, risks and cost of childbirth for women and their careers.

Even on Chinese internet platforms and social networks, the technology of artificial wombs and the possibility of using it to change the demographic trend are increasingly being discussed.

Researchers from Suzhou said their robotic nanny can identify and track embryos, and produce ultra-sharp images at various depths by quickly switching between different lenses. The AI technology also allows the machine to detect and learn from new phenomena that may go unnoticed or be ignored by humans, which could accelerate the "optimization and iteration of in vitro long-term embryo culture technology."

Artificial womb technology is not new and has developed rapidly in recent years. In 2019, a research group from the Institute of Zoology in Beijing transferred a fertilized monkey egg to the organ formation stage in a synthetic womb, the first time a primate embryo had progressed so far outside the mother's body.

That same year, scientists from the Netherlands said they would create an artificial womb within 10 years to save premature babies. Another team in Israel, in March 2021, brought a batch of more than 100 mouse embryos to the stage of a half-grown fetus.

"I don't think the technology will be a problem," said a researcher from the Capital Institute of Pediatrics in Beijing. The challenge will be legal and ethical issues in China and beyond, says the researcher, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Surrogacy is illegal in China. Artificial womb technology would turn the hospital into a surrogate parent. "I don't think any hospital would want to take on such responsibility," the researcher said.

Mass production of babies at an artificial womb factory could help maintain the population in a country whose citizens are not eager to have children. But what could the social or psychological consequences be? "If everyone is born this way, it is fair. But if some children are born to parents and some by the state, there will be a big problem," says an anonymous researcher.