Inside Silicon Valley's Growing Obsession With Having Smarter Babies

Svi Benson-Tilsen, a mathematician, spent seven years researching how to keep an advanced form of artificial intelligence from destroying humanity before he concluded that stopping it wasn't possible—at least anytime soon.

- Zusha Elinson

Svi Benson-Tilsen, a mathematician, spent seven years researching how to keep an advanced form of artificial intelligence from destroying humanity before he concluded that stopping it wasn't possible—at least anytime soon. Now, he's turned his considerable brainpower to promoting cutting-edge technology to create smarter humans who will be up to the task of saving us all.

"My intuition is it's one of our best hopes," said Benson-Tilsen, co-founder of the Berkeley Genomics Project, a nonprofit supporting the new field.

This isn't science fiction. It is Silicon Valley, where interest in breeding smarter babies is peaking.

Parents here are paying up to $50,000 for new genetic-testing services that include promises to screen embryos for IQ. Tech futurists such as Elon Musk are urging the intellectually gifted to multiply, while professional matchmakers are setting up tech execs with brilliant partners partly to get brilliant offspring.

"Right now I have one, two, three tech CEOs and all of them prefer Ivy League," said Jennifer Donnelly, a high-end matchmaker who charges up to $500,000.

The fascination with what some call "genetic optimization" reflects deeper Silicon Valley beliefs about merit and success. "I think they have a perception that they are smart and they are accomplished, and they deserve to be where they are because they have 'good genes'," said Sasha Gusev, a statistical geneticist at Harvard Medical School. "Now they have a tool where they think that they can do the same thing in their kids as well, right?"

The growing IQ fetish is sparking debate with bio-ethicists raising alarms about the new genetic-screening services.

"Is it fair? This is something a lot of people worry about," said Hank Greely, director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford University. "It is a great science fiction plot: The rich people create a genetically super caste that takes over and the rest of us are proles."