Trait selection via third‑party analytics

Updated: 2026.01.15 14D ago 5 sources
Even if testing labs restrict reports to health risks, companies can accept the raw embryo genotypes and generate predictions for traits like IQ, height, and eye color. This 'middleware' model functionally delivers designer‑style selection without the primary lab offering it. — It reveals a regulatory loophole that shifts governance from test providers to data flows, forcing policymakers to regulate downstream analytics and consent rather than only lab menus.

Sources

Body Literacy Is the New “Sex Ed”
Merlot Mary Fogarty 2026.01.15 85% relevant
The article’s push to normalize 'body literacy' and advanced editing creates demand for downstream analytics companies that will accept embryo genotype data and score traits—precisely the third‑party pipeline the existing idea warns can deliver designer‑style selection absent direct clinic offerings.
How Embryo Selection Technology exposes the Transferability Paradox
2026.01.05 85% relevant
Herasight and similar firms exemplify the 'middleware' ecosystem: clinics may supply genotype data to third‑party analytics that report trait predictions; the article shows how private actors push predictive claims into reproductive decisions, which is the pathway the existing idea warns about.
A Boomer Geneticist's Approach to Human Enhancement
2026.01.05 80% relevant
Piffer’s framing — a public, shareable list of candidate targets for enhancement — maps onto the existing concern that downstream analytics vendors could take genotype data and produce trait‑selection predictions or embryo rankings, effectively operationalizing a blueprint without primary laboratories offering the service.
Polygenics and Machine SuperIntelligence; Billionaires, Philo-semitism, and Chosen Embryos – Manifold #102
Steve Hsu 2026.01.01 92% relevant
Steve Hsu highlights elite use of IVF plus genetic scoring and the commercial pathways that would let third‑party analytics take raw embryo genotypes and produce trait predictions — exactly the downstream regulatory loophole the existing idea warns about (companies accepting raw embryo genotypes to deliver trait predictions). The article’s mention of billionaires and aggressive embryo selection concretely exemplifies that business model and its social risks.
Suddenly, Trait-Based Embryo Selection - by Scott Alexander
2025.10.07 100% relevant
Nucleus takes Genomic Prediction’s embryo raw data to predict IQ/height/eye color; Herasight launches IQ PGS claims (6–9 points) and publicly challenges Nucleus’s rigor.
← Back to All Ideas