In vitro fertilization has exploded across America. The number of babies born through assisted reproductive technologies — most of them via IVF — jumped 45%from 2013 to 2022.
A more recent part of the surge is elective IVF — still a small share of overall IVF cycles — in which people who could conceive naturally choose IVF to screen embryos for genetic traits linked to cancer risk, IQ, height and more.
Why it matters: It's becoming big business, with screening companies promising "generational health." But doctors warn that the science behind embryo scoring for complex conditions is shaky — and could push would-be parents toward major medical and emotional decisions based on unproven data.
Artificial intelligence is struggling to understand accented English and non-standard dialects, creating problems that can cascade into biased hiring, grading or clinical records.
Why it matters: AI is deciding who gets a job interview, how students are graded, and what doctors record in a patient's chart. But major speech-to-text systems make far more errors for Black speakers than for white speakers.
