AI Pregnancies (Part 1/2): The Future Of Robotic "Baby Mamas"

Welcome to this week’s Deep-Fried Dive with Fry Guy! In these long-form articles, Fry Guy conducts in-depth analyses of cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) developments and developers. Today, Fry Guy dives into an odd future possibility: AI’s potential role in pregnancy. We hope you enjoy!

*Notice: We do not receive any monetary compensation from the people and projects we feature in the Sunday Deep-Fried Dives with Fry Guy. We explore these projects and developers solely to showcase interesting and cutting-edge AI developments and uses.*

Imagine a future baby shower where the guest of honor is a sleek robotic womb humming quietly in the corner, occasionally chiming, “Your baby’s development is 60% complete.”

This might sound like a science fiction pipedream, but it’s grounded in real science edging closer to reality. Advances in AI and reproductive technology are transforming how we conceive and gestate babies. In-vitro fertilization (IVF) is already getting an AI assist, and scientists are developing artificial wombs that might one day carry pregnancies from zygote to crying newborn. In this entertaining yet insightful two-part tour, we’ll explore the current state of AI-assisted baby-making and take a speculative leap into a future where “Mom” might be an algorithm. Along the way, we’ll hear from parents and experts—and even future kids—about the perks and perils of letting robots take the wheel of the baby carriage.

AI ENTERS THE IVF LAB

Modern fertility clinics have quietly become hotbeds of AI innovation. Creating a test-tube baby isn’t simple: embryologists must pick the healthiest embryo, often by eyeballing them under a microscope. Enter the machines. AI algorithms are now helping doctors choose the best embryos, aiming to boost IVF success rates. For example, researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine developed an AI system called BELA that can accurately assess whether an IVF embryo has a normal number of chromosomes (a key factor for a healthy pregnancy) just by analyzing time-lapse images of the embryo and the mother’s age​. Such tools provide an “embryo quality score” without needing an invasive biopsy, promising a more objective selection than a human’s educated guess.

Other systems like STORK-A use deep learning to analyze embryo images and predict viability with about 70% accuracy, rivaling traditional genetic tests​. To put it more simply: an AI embryo guru scans cell divisions and subtle features invisible to the human eye, then whispers to the doctor, “Psst … implant Embryo #7—it has the best odds.” The goal is not to replace the IVF doctor (who still handles the tricky parts) but to give would-be parents better chances and maybe cut down the time and cost of multiple IVF cycles.

ROBO-LAB ASSISTANTS AND SPERM BOTS

AI isn’t just picking embryos; it’s also hands-on in the lab … literally. Enter next-gen sperm-injecting robots. In 2023, a team from a Spanish startup unveiled a robot that can perform one of IVF’s delicate tasks: injecting a single sperm into an egg (ICSI) with precision. How did they control this microrobotic arm? With a Sony PlayStation 5 controller. Yes, you read that right: a student engineer with no fertility medicine experience steered a tiny needle via PS5 and successfully fertilized dozens of eggs​. The result was two healthy baby girls and the first humans born from a robot-assisted conception. “I was calm... It’s just one more experiment,” said the unflappable engineer after his PS5-bot made reproductive history​.

Robotics companies like Overture Life envision a future “IVF in a box”—a fully automated conception device. “Think of a box where sperm and eggs go in, and an embryo comes out five days later,” said the company’s chief innovation officer​. In other words, tomorrow’s stork might be a vending machine-like device on your counter. And this isn’t sci-fi; it’s a logical extension of lab automation already underway. Fertility labs today rely on highly skilled (and highly paid) humans, but startups aim to streamline and cheapen the process through AI​. If they succeed, making a baby via IVF could become as routine (and hopefully as user-friendly) as brewing a cappuccino on a smart coffee maker—just with far higher stakes.

THE ARTIFICIAL WOMB

Creating an embryo is only half the story—what about growing it into a baby? Traditionally, that job has been strictly for human uteruses (or less commonly, surrogate mothers). But scientists have been inching toward artificial wombs, moving the frontier of ectogenesis (gestation outside a human body) from science fiction to lab prototypes. In 2017, researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) stunned the world by sustaining premature lamb fetuses in a fluid-filled plastic “Biobag” for four weeks​. The lambs, equivalent to extremely premature human babies, continued developing as if still in utero–growing wool, opened their eyes, even breathed amniotic fluid. A video of a tiny lamb snoozing in its acrylic womb-tank understandably triggered both awe and alarm, with some observers immediately imagining Matrix-like baby farms​.

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The CHOP team, led by fetal surgeon Alan Flake, was quick to diminish the sci-fi hype. Their latest system, called EXTEND (Extra-uterine Environment for Newborn Development), is intended only to assist babies born very prematurely (around 22–24 weeks), not to replace pregnancy from start to finish​. In fact, U.S. regulators are currently considering trials to use artificial womb devices for partial gestation: essentially an advanced neonatal incubator to bridge the gap for preemies who would normally struggle to survive​. In plain terms: No one is growing full-size babies in vats … yet. The focus is on giving extreme preemies a more natural womb-like environment to improve survival, not on skipping normal pregnancy for convenience.

However, it’s hard not to speculate about the “yet.” If a fetus can thrive for a month in a Biobag, each incremental improvement inches closer to true ectogenesis—a world where an embryo could develop all the way from conception to birth outside a human. Researchers have already grown mouse embryos without a mother (using stem cells in a bioreactor) for over a week​. And since 2023, biotech startups have sought approval to use an artificial womb on human infants, buoyed by successes in animal trials​. Science is literally pushing the boundaries of where life can be created and sustained, and if successful, AI could likely be the indispensable nanny monitoring every heartbeat and blood oxygen level in these future pods.

Could you imagine what this would look like? It would be like something out of the Matrix. Hashem Al-Ghali imagined a fictional large-scale artificial womb facility dubbed EctoLife, with rows of “growth pods” nurturing embryos. This fictional facility was imagined to incubate up to 30,000 babies a year under AI supervision. But given what we have explored thus far, is such a facility so far-fetched?​

FROM SCI-FI TO REALITY: A PEEK AT A FUTURISTIC ROBO-NURSERY

Let’s fast-forward to a 2040 scenario. You and your partner have decided to have a baby, but instead of conceiving the traditional way (wine, dinner, and Barry White), you head to the nearest AI Reproduction Center. You provide some cells (perhaps skin cells that get magically turned into sperm and eggs in the lab), and an AI matchmaker selects the most promising genetic combination for your embryo. Within hours, you have a microscopic embryo, and it’s transferred not into a uterus, but into “Mother 2.0”—a smart artificial womb pod. The pod’s transparent shell lets you see your little bean sprout, while an AI system regulates everything: temperature, nutrients, oxygen, waste removal—all the duties of a placenta and amniotic sac.

You get an app on your phone with real-time updates: “Good morning! Fetus #249 has a steady heartbeat and kicked 3 times in the last hour. At this rate, expect soccer legs!” Via the app’s live feed, you watch a high-resolution time-lapse video of your baby’s development and share a clip of its first simulated “hiccup” on social media. This is what we call parental bonding, 21st-century style! Concerned that baby won’t know mom’s voice? The womb pod has got you covered with built-in speakers. Every night, it plays your voice reading Goodnight Moon, so the fetus grows familiar with Mom and Dad’s intonations​ (yes, even artificial wombs come with Bluetooth speakers for lullabies now). And when the big day arrives, there’s no water breaking or frantic drive to the hospital—you simply get a notification to come to the clinic with a car seat. With the press of a button, the pod “births” your child, draining the amniotic fluid and unveiling a healthy newborn​. Congratulations, it’s a boy!

Sounds wild, doesn’t it? Yet, all the pieces of this scenario are extensions of technologies being developed right now: IVF automation, AI health monitoring, and bioreactors for gestation. The speculative EctoLife video depicted exactly such a facility, complete with push-button deliveries and an AI system that adjusts nutrients to each fetus’s needs​. While this EctoLife scenario is purely conceptual (there isn’t actually a secret lab with 30,000 robo-babies being grown​), it reflects genuine aspirations in the biotech community. As AI continues to advance in this field, the line between science and fiction is getting blurrier than a sonogram image.

In Part 2 next week, we will explore the ethical components of this AI pregnancy craziness!