Artificial intelligence is making its way into assisted reproductive technologies, even to the point of automating certain stages of in vitro fertilization. Beyond the promises of greater efficiency and safety, this development invites us to reflect on the vision of the human person that underlies it. Drawing on the criteria of “integral human development” reaffirmed by the recent magisterium, Brice de Maherbe, lecturer in bioethics at the Collège des Bernardins and expert adviser to the French Bishops’ Conference and the Holy See, examines the anthropological assumptions behind these innovations and raises the question of the risk of a shift from procreation to the production of human beings.
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“Artificial intelligence” is now being introduced into the field of artificial fertilisation techniques. IVI RMA Global, which describes itself as the world’s leading reproductive medicine group, with more than 200 clinics in Europe, the United States and Latin America, and Conceivable Life Sciences, a New York biotechnology company, recently announced that the first automated human reproduction laboratory would be incorporated into a future New York clinic in 20271.
The AURATM laboratory—currently undergoing clinical studies—makes it possible to automate the pre-implantation stages of the in vitro fertilisation process, from the preparation of the Petri dish and its culture medium to the incubation of very young human embryos before implantation, including the preparation of the sperm sample, the selection and preparation of the oocytes, and the injection of a sperm cell into an oocyte by ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection). The various stages are illustrated by short videos on the Conceivable Life Sciences website2. The technology also allows embryos to be vitrified extremely rapidly for deferred implantation. The use of AI makes it possible to process thousands of data points per cycle, with a view to improving efficiency, particularly by selecting the gametes presumed to be the most capable of successful embryonic development.
The company stresses that the process remains under human supervision. This supervision consists chiefly in ensuring that the various machines and robotic arms are functioning “correctly”, and in monitoring the data transmitted on screen, with occasional interventions at particular points in the process. One of the stated advantages of combining AI with robotics is precisely that it reduces the time that scientists or embryology laboratory technicians would otherwise spend on the technical procedures leading to the fertilisation of an oocyte by ICSI. Other acclaimed advantages include improved traceability of fluids in order to avoid any confusion of identity, selection of the highest-“performing” gametes, and the greatest possible reduction in the risks of “contamination”.
Could this use of AI combined with robotics in the field of artificial fertilisation techniques serve “integral human development”3, to take up a fundamental criterion of ethical discernment recalled by Pope Leo XIV in Magnifica Humanitas , following his predecessors? The Holy Father sets out two key points of reference for judging whether technical progress brings about progress in humanity: “the anthropological vision that guides it” and the “ends it pursues” (Magnifica Humanitas 94).
I A truly beneficial end?
The widespread dissemination and acceptance of so-called “medically assisted procreation” techniques stems from the fact that their aim is to bring about the birth of a child for one or more adults who desire one. The birth of a child is in itself good news. That technical progress should facilitate the birth of a child therefore seems a priori to constitute human progress.
Nevertheless, many questions may arise regarding a desired birth, whether the pregnancy results from an artificial fertilisation technique or from any other form of pregnancy:
- Will the child be welcomed if he or she has a disability or a serious health problem?
- Will the child be welcomed into a family environment that fosters his or her human growth?
- Will the child be told about the circumstances of his or her conception, and if so, how? What impact will this have on the child’s psychological development?
We know that the Church, faithful to the teaching of her Saviour, calls us to welcome every child as a gift and not as something owed and affirms, as Pope Francis expressed it, that “conjugal love between a man and a woman and the transmission of life are ordered to one another4”. In other words, the good end represented by the hoped-for birth of a child deserves closer examination, without allowing ourselves to be impressed—or overwhelmed—by technical possibilities. The Catholic Magisterium has on several occasions set out, with supporting arguments, its negative judgement on artificial fertilisation techniques; and —without forgetting the necessary pastoral accompaniment of couples suffering from childlessness—I can only refer, for example, to the Instructions Donum vitae (1987) and Dignitas personae (2008) of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
On these texts, see:
- Albert Chapelle s.j., « Le clonage d’êtres humains », NRT 123-1 (2001), pp. 27-45
- Alain Mattheeuws s.j., « Le “corps embryonnaire”. Une avancée de Dignitas personae », NRT 134-4 (2012), pp. 606-627
- Pierre d’Ornellas, Thierry Collaud, Albert Chapelle, Xavier Dijon, Alain Mattheeuws, Bioéthique. Vulnérabilité et communion, Cahiers de la NRT series, CLD, 2018, 176 pp., ISBN 978-2-85443-589-4, order here
These documents are specifically concerned to situate ethical judgement within both an anthropological and a theological perspective. In the light of human experience and a long philosophical tradition, they recall that human nature “is at once corporeal and spiritual5”, and that the means used to conceive a human being must be discerned on the basis of this unity of body and spiritual soul. To this is added the datum of faith, which makes it possible to “develop an integral vision of man and of his vocation6”. In this regard, Saint John Paul II offered us a particularly inspired insight: “the genealogy of the person is inscribed in the very biology of generation7”. The history of each person, enriched or burdened by the generations that preceded him or her, passes through the biological process of fertilisation. It finds its beginning and its end in God.
II A dualistic anthropology
Yet the proposal to conceive a new human being in an increasingly automated laboratory, where the principal actors are robotic arms and an AI without a body, emotions or consciousness, bears witness to the anthropological vision that has guided artificial fertilisation techniques from their beginnings: a dualistic anthropology. The philosopher Olivier Rey recently stated that such dualism “has never held such sway”, in a general form that has nothing to do with Cartesian dualism: “on the one hand, a limitless will; on the other, insubstantial matter, over which the will is entirely free to exercise itself in order to achieve its ends8”. Here, the dissociation of mind and body is artificial and is not real in the embryo.
In fact, artificial fertilisation techniques find their justification in the “parental project”, an expression of the will of the potential parents, while disregarding their bodies, which are reduced to mere material devoid of meaning. Conversely, the embryo is seen only in its biological dimension as an organism, without any spiritual dimension: it is merely a small amount of matter without real substance, which can be manipulated in a laboratory and “vitrified”.
III Procreation or production?
The introduction of AI combined with robotics only accentuates the original defect of artificial fertilisation techniques: the anthropology that guides them is a dualistic anthropology which, under the guise of good intentions, and often of lucrative profits, leads to violations of human dignity. Through the dissociation of the bodily embrace from conception, as Professor Vial Correa clearly saw, a shift has taken place from procreation to production, with the development of R&D to improve the “produced9” embryo as its corollary. In this context, the philosopher Dominique Folscheid, drawing on Martin Heidegger, emphasises that technology is no longer merely instrumental; it becomes instrumentalising:
The novelty is that we have moved from technē as a mode of collaboration with nature to modern technology as a “provocation” directed at that same nature, which is expressed concretely in its “enframing”10.
Far from contributing to integral human development, the combination of AI and robotics in the field of reproductive technology only reinforces the dehumanisation of the transmission of life, within a broader context that seeks to free itself from the “limits” of the sexed body—for example, by promoting a model of filiation by consent that is increasingly dissociated from filiation through bodily kinship. It would be good for our brothers and sisters in humanity to pause, in conscience, and reflect on this headlong rush. Selection, rejection, reduction to functionality or to the gene. Such actions or ways of thinking are based on criteria denounced by Benedict XVI:
Human dignity cannot be identified with the genes of a human being’s DNA, nor is it diminished by the possible presence of physical differences or genetic defects11.
In any event, let us reread these words of Pope Francis:
Let us think of the value of that embryo from the moment of conception! We need to look at it with the Father’s eyes of love, which see beyond all appearances12.
1. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ivi-rma-global-and-conceivable-life-sciences-announce-partnership-to-deploy-the-first-automated-ivf-lab-in-the-us-302816394.html, accessed 27/07/2026.
2. https://www.conceivable.life/ivf-tech, accessed 27/07/2026.
3. Leo XIV, Encyclical Letter on the protection of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence, Magnifica Humanitas, 15 May 2026, no 93.
4. Francis, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, 19 March 2016, no 81.
5. Donum Vitae, I, 1.
6. Dignitas Personae 3.
7. John Paul II, Letter to Families, 1994, no. 9.
8. Interview in Le Figaro, 24 July 2026, p. 17.
9. Cf. J. de D. Vial Correa, « ¿Procrear o producir ?, Humanitas, Revista de antropología y cultura cristiana 2/5 (1997).
10. D. Folscheid, Made in labo. De la procréation artificielle au transhumanisme, Cerf, 2019, p. 46.
11. Benedict XVI, Address to the participants in the 20th International Conference organised by the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care on the theme of the human genome (19 November 2005).
12. Francis, Amoris Laetitia 168.