ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Silicon Valley Parents Are Spending $50,000 to Screen Embryos for IQ

Some tech CEOs are hoping that their children will be smart enough to regulate the artificial intelligence being developed in their very own industry.

Like Sydney Sweeney, these Silicon Valley parents want good genes, and they’re paying Bay Area companies as much as $50,000 to ensure they choose the embryos with the highest IQ for in vitro fertilization. Stephen Hsu, a co-founder of one of the earliest genetic screening companies, told the Wall Street Journal that some of his clients are choosing to screen their embryos out of an existential fear of artificial intelligence. They “are committed to a long-term eugenics program where they create smarter humans, and the smarter humans are the ones that make AI safe,” he said. Others simply want to optimize their children’s chance for success, as defined by the Silicon Valley culture that prizes intelligence to such an extent that top preschools require IQ tests of prospective students and professional matchmakers fetch up to $500,000 for pairing Ivy League-educated tech CEOs, the Journal reports. Critics argue that, beyond potentially violating the principles of bioethics, expensive genetic screenings may not be as effective as parents hope since intelligence is not tied to a single gene, but rather, is a subjective and complex trait shaped by a variety of genetic, environmental, and social factors.