We have research papers with animal fetuses being grown in artificial wombs. Never know, could be some technology developed for humans during the next 100 years.
Raising the baby is the hard part, and no one's lining up to make that easier.
>medical advances that address the risks and costs of childbirth
We all batteries in 100 years
That rumor of producers changing it to batteries started because Neil Gaiman thought the battery thing was dumb so when he was hired to do a promotional wrote Matrix short story he changed it to the humans being used for computer processing.
There’s tons of alternative research paths going untouched that leverage information theory to hack “reality” directly rather than hack on synthetic computers and software within an enclosed time-space vacuum constrained by known hardware limitations.
Metaverses running on synthetic machines seems way more prosaic than a metaverse in my own head I might be able to switch on off with a pill.
I'm really not sure what's so outrageous about the situation. Most adopted (or fostered) people manage without psychosis.
We already have surrogacy, which is when one human volunteers use of their womb to carry somebody else's child (that is, egg comes from person A, sperm from person B, A+B = new human life => fertilised egg is implanted in person C, the surrogate). I know two kids who were born this way, they have loving parents, the eldest will be aware that something is a bit unusual - any other mummies she knows who had a second kid the baby was obviously inside them, whereas her baby sister was inside this other nice lady who just showed up for a few weeks and she's been told that's how it worked for her too - but obviously the tricky details aren't going to be worth explaining to a pre-schooler once they're satisfied with any immediate questions (e.g. is this new baby my sister? Yes. Does the nice lady mean I get extra birthday presents? No)
An artificial womb potentially makes surrogacy an option for larger numbers of people. Some people find pregnancy pretty good really, and their main reason to stop after one or two is economics or practicalities, so this innovation changes nothing for them - but others don't want to risk a second pregnancy after discovering how badly their body reacted the first time, so such technology (if cheap enough) would mean they could have a second or third child.
This also changes the calculus for government intervention. Hiring women to be impregnated is a much more difficult proposition than hiring nursery or orphanage staff. An artificial womb would mean only the second is needed.
If we invent artificial womb's the egg is still coming out of the mother's body.
The egg still get inseminated by a father.
Why should anyone care whether the mother painfully forced the baby out of the vagina after 9 months?
Now the social pressures of being a “machine baby” vs “natural womb baby” would be a different thing.
Much like now.