Chinese Scientists Build Nanny Robot For Baby In Artificial Uterus

JAKARTA - For decades, China has experienced a low birth rate. Therefore, scientists in the country created a new breakthrough by creating a robot babysitter.

The robot babysitter in question was created from artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor and care for human embryos growing in artificial wombs.

Despite its status as the world's most populous country, China is experiencing a population growth problem, with the birth rate recently dropping to its lowest level in six decades.

Therefore, scientists at the Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology in eastern China's Jiangsu Province, developed robots to perform tasks, such as observing, documenting, and manually adjusting carbon dioxide, nutrients, and more in embryos.

The robot can also rank embryos based on their developmental potential. The research paper, published in the Journal of Biomedical Engineering, describes how robotic caregivers have been used to nurture animal embryos in an artificial womb environment.

“There are still many unsolved mysteries about the developmental physiology of the typical human embryo. This technology will not only help to better understand the origin of life and development of the human embryo, but also provide a theoretical basis for solving the problem of birth defects and other major reproductive health problems," the paper said.

According to the paper quoted from The Independent, Tuesday, February 1, the system allows the fetus to grow more safely and efficiently than in a woman's natural womb.

In fact, the technology is inspired by the robot sitter described in the short story Dacey's Patent Automatic Nanny from Ted Chiang's acclaimed Exhalation 2019 collection.

In the story, a child is raised exclusively by a robot babysitter, but grows up to become a child who is unable to interact with other humans.

However, Chinese scientists have proven that the technology can be safely used for embryo development.

Unfortunately, current international law prohibits experimental studies on human embryos after two weeks of development. However, research at a later stage is important because there are still many unsolved mysteries about the developmental physiology of the typical human embryo.

For information, artificial womb technology is not new, and has developed rapidly in recent years.

In 2019, a team of researchers from the Institute of Zoology in Beijing brought fertilized monkey eggs to the stage of synthetic internal organ formation, the first time a primate embryo has gone this far outside the mother's body.

That same year, scientists in the Netherlands told BBC International that within 10 years they had built an artificial womb to save premature babies.