The rapid advance of artificial intelligence (AI) technology twinned with its application to IVF (in vitro fertilisation) could lead to a dystopian situation in which thousands of embryos are used in a single round of treatment.

Amounting to a modern form of infanticide at a “potentially industrial scale”, the use of assisted reproductive technology procedures bolstered by AI is being influenced by the resurgence of pre-Christian pagan cultural practises, warns Charles Camosy, a teacher of bioethics and moral theology at the Catholic University of America.