Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by pomtato 987 days ago
well you're in for suprise!

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02901-1

now while this isn't nearly at the level of human cloning, it never ceases to amaze me how far we've come.

2 comments

Artificial wombs don't reduce the period of bring a child to be be a functioning social being (currently 18 - 28 years). Nor the costs or other incentives or disincentives.

To me, the most likely consequence is to reduce the total fertility rate to one child per woman.

This is far from even hinting at an artificial womb. It is at best a replacement for an infant ventilator and incubator. In the best case, it will improve survival rates for fetuses that even today sometimes survive.

But the first 20 or so weeks, from conception up to viability, are an entirely different prospect and we have no idea how we could replicate them yet.

i understand where you're coming from but like any other ecosystem, we'll need a bunch of puzzle pieces and this just happens to be one of them :)
I believe this particular piece is like claiming that the ancient Egyptians being happy that they are closer to building space rockets, now that they understand how to build an aerodynamic tip for an arrow. It is a piece of the puzzle, but it is very far from the part that is extremely hard to do.