Those TikTok Videos Floating the Idea of an Artificial Womb Facility Are Freaking Us Out

On today’s episode of nobody asked for this, we investigate the concept of an artificial womb facility. It's been the talk of the town on TikTok ever since a video introduced the idea earlier this month. Allegedly, this artificial womb facility, or as I like to call it — a baby factory —would be a lab where babies would be made instead of being carried by a parent for 40 weeks.

The man behind this rather bizarre concept is Yemeni science communicator, director, and producer Hashem Al-Ghaili. The good news is that he already has a name picked out for this project: EctoLife. The bad news is that this facility seems a little bit too innovative for most folks to wrap their heads around.

"Introducing EctoLife, the world's first artificial womb facility," says TikTok creator Thomas Mulligan (@mullligan.tv) in a video discussing Hashem's concept.

"The world's population is supposed to start rapidly declining after 2100, so the team behind EctoLife thinks we should be investing in technology that makes having kids much faster, easier, cheaper, and more accessible," Thomas says.

That said, this so-called facility by EctoLife would be able to incubate up to 30,000 lab-grown babies.

And not only would it take the burden off parents to conceive and carry children, but EctoLife also plans to use gene technology to fix genetic disorders in babies. Also, each baby would receive customized nutrients tailored to their needs.

And here's the kicker: EctoLife would also offer smartphone connectivity so parents would be able to track their baby's progress.

Thomas also claims that Ectolife has a theory that the human uterus and pelvis have previously put a brake on the size of a human brain and skull. That said, Ectolife would experiment with removing these constraints to open up the way for a new evolutionary trajectory.

As expected, the comment section went wild. Some users teased that EctoLife sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Others pointed out that it nodded to the dystopia portrayed in the book Brave New World.

And others could not get over the fact that parents would be able to connect their smartphones to their developing baby.

One user summed up everyone's worries and concerns in just a few simple words: "Good thing I'll be dead by then!"

If you're looking to learn more about Hashem Al-Ghaili's EctoLife project, you can watch his video below.

As for the rest of us, we'll just keep having babies the old-fashioned way. And keep those pelvises and uteruses intact.