Today we’re talking about synthetic wombs - naturally.
It was proposed that tech should be investing (their favourite activity) more into the medical space. Looking at what new technologies they can create to help us all live longer (allegedly). One of the suggested technologies was a synthetic womb.
Now before I begin, of course, there are people out there who would love for this technology to exist where they can’t conceive - I’m sure IVF once seemed ‘too far’. But i’ve got some graver concerns around synthetic wombs, as you’ll see.
For starters, what about more basic tech in medicine? Maybe it’s different in American McHospitals, where there’s no patients - only customers. Which makes for a weird crossover of incentives that means half the country is on drugs they don’t need for diseases they don’t have. In the UK however, I’m not sure any future tech is the tech we need in medical care. The NHS (barely) runs on WindowsXP. There’s almost no computing power used on wards - instead we’ve not moved far past ye olde paper and pen. And if you’ve ever glanced at hospital notes, you’ll know they look like they’ve been left by Micheal J Fox. I’m not averse to tech in medicine, maybe just start with a MacBook?
What i’m definitely not sure about is tech and sex. Sex robots are already too far. The plastic woman of your dreams, who is available (and ‘horny’) 24/7 feels like the perfect way to destroy the population. Imagine a sex robot that can access your search history, trawling through years of porn preferences and instagram likes all in aid of creating the algorithmically perfect orgasm. Romantic. The technologically perfect way to ensure no pre-(or post)pubescent boy ever has to risk talking to a woman. And no girl or woman ever runs the risk of ‘suffering’ from the great economic equality breaker that is motherhood.
Yes, one of the ‘advantages’ touted of the synthetic womb is economic equality. Women apparently ‘suffer’ when they have children, the time lost meaning fewer promotions and lower paying jobs. But are they really suffering? Is the entire point of the world to maximise global economic output? Surely even the most cynical of us can dream of a world filled with more than GDP maximisation.
Few people on their death beds remark on the time spent at work (unless they are lamenting it) or pass on life lessons on productivity in the workplace. Instead they talk of family, of small moments, of human connection. Why then, are we allowing TechBros (mostly incapable of feeling love inside their mechanical hearts) to reduce the human experience to numbers and economic output?
You never know, maybe these wombs even progress further! Maybe one day they can incubate us for years not just 9 months. Even better then, the long wasted years of not contributing to GDP and instead spending time ‘being a child’ can end. We can all dream of the day our child gets born at 18, ready to go to work the second the ‘SyntheticWomb by Meta’ spits them out, full of coding knowledge and devoid of social skills - as god intended.
Also, if we are going for synthetic wombs, why not synthetic dicks? Why waste time having sex when you could be working! Think how much we could get done if we all stopped wasting time banging like losers, when we could be working and coding like the cool kids. Imagine coming home from work to hear the wonderful news from your wife - while you were both earning at an economically equal rate, your synthetic dick got her synthetic womb pregnant! In 9 months your child* will be here!
Alas, with these new technologies, comes new problems. For instance when is a child not your child? How many parts of the birthing process can be replaced or synthesised before it’s more an act of cloning than procreation? We could be heading head first towards a new ‘Dick of Theseus’ paradox.