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Have AI Researchers Given Up On 'Bio-Babies'?
This X poster wonders just how far AI researchers have gone in their pursuit of artificially intelligent life.
“ I was at a lunch in Palo Alto and there were some young AI scientists there who were saying that they would never have a “bio baby” because as soon as you have a “bio baby,” you get the “mind virus” of the [biological] world. And when you have the mind virus, you become committed to your human baby. But it’s much more important to be committed to the AI of the future. And so to have human babies is fundamentally unethical.”
“ I was at a lunch in Palo Alto and there were some young AI scientists there who were saying that they would never have a “bio baby” because as soon as you have a “bio baby,” you get the “mind virus” of the [biological] world. And when you have the mind virus, you become… https://t.co/9wWx5JabgI
— T. Greer (@Scholars_Stage) April 10, 2025
Incredible. One of my favorite fictional treatments of this idea is from "Flood", a 2008 novel by Stephen Baxter. In the novel, he describes 'Headspace', a virtual environment in which a person could have and raise a virtual AI-backed child (see below).
Sadly, when the world's infrastructure was destroyed, reality imposed a harsh penalty; her "child" vanished. Baxter writes:
"The fact was, her access to Headspace was the product of a complex and interconnected society, the capstone of a pyramid grounded in very old technologies, in farming and mining and manufacture and transport and energy production. It was only as that essential pyramid was crumbling that Maria became fully aware of its existence. The singularity came to seem more and more out of reach - an absurdity, actually. You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up."
(Headspace from "Flood" (2008), by Stephen Baxter.)
I should also give credit to David Brin who described something similar in Natulife (1994), see the entry for virtual childrearing.
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