The End of Natural Birth?

“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race….It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete, and would be superseded.”— Stephen Hawking

I wonder when it will become taboo to give birth naturally. Or what we currently consider to be natural. When genetically altered, lab designed babies can be grown in an external womb and be birthed with a 99.9% success rate avoiding practically all diseases, it will become against the grain to give birth the old fashioned way, through a woman's body. What kind of social caveats and implications will this have? Women no longer being at the forefront of birth and instead, carrying the same weight in the growth of a new human as little as a man does.

How will the dynamics of our new social circles play out, how will our understanding of masculine and feminine adapt and morph as we change one of the most fundamental facets of our existence, possibly all existence? We have not yet come into knowledge of what happens when you change the reproduction of a species so much. I can see the arguments unravelling already, many will consider natural birth to be the same as not vaccinating. A high risks gamble, especially when compared to the precision of lab-grown results. And they would be right in thinking so, a world ever more consumed and run by the statistics on a page than the feelings in one's heart is likely to take percentage points seriously when all hell breaks loose and the crazies come knocking on God's door.

What if you were asked, almost subtly, what characteristics and traits you would hope for in your child? What if the doctor, or scientist, (because currently, I am unsure as to who the responsibility the task would fall under) looked under a microscope at the 1000 separate egg/sperm combinations and ran a computer algorithm to select the five possible alterations that suit your requirements. Blue eyes, blonde hair, a strong immune system and an aptitude for high IQ please Miss Scientist.

Within a decade our world will transform. More empowerment to women after a period of extreme meaninglessness. A tear in our world, deeper than any felt before, god vs science on the grandest of scales. We will teeter on what it means to be a god in the biblical sense. More loss of meaning is sure to follow.

But what if, what if this new scientific revolution changes everything for the better? No more disease, no more infantile death. No mother will ever have to give her life for that of her baby due to biological complications. No baby will be born with a bad deck of cards, each one of us given the same chance at success, the same shot at happiness. I used to fear for the future based on our current understanding of technology and our primitive, monkey minds.

“We must address, individually and collectively, moral and ethical issues raised by cutting-edge research in artificial intelligence and biotechnology, which will enable significant life extension, designer babies, and memory extraction.” —Klaus Schwab

I don't hold that fear anymore. I chose to move into a place of faith instead, where I hold the belief that we will become whatever we are destined to become, and that is just perfect as it is.

AmazonPeople. Coming soon.