Stopping the New Adam: A Call for an AI Genetics Non-Proliferation Treaty
The same nation that once bore the burden of shaping a nuclear order must now summon the courage to shape the future of artificial intelligence. AI genetics threatens not only to alter human life but to redefine what it means to be human. If America acts with vision and resolve, it can still draw the boundaries that safeguard dignity, freedom, and sovereignty.
Introduction
For better and worse, artificial intelligence (AI) will likely alter virtually every sphere of human life, from industry to education and science. There are few greater threats than AI in the context of genetics and human biology. Fortunately, the American public is becoming more aware of the need to regulate the technological-progressive onslaught on the most intimate and natural aspects of human life, such as procreation and gestation. The moral, geopolitical, and economic threat posed by AI-enabled creation is so massive that it will require solutions that look beyond the current political moment. America should lead the creation of an international framework to restrict the development of AI-driven genetic manipulation. It is not yet too late to preserve American leadership and sovereignty, but the point of no return on genetic manipulation using AI is close enough that it warrants political solutions that Americans might otherwise consider unacceptable.
An Approaching AI Genetics Revolution
The world finds itself in a moment similar to the one it faced in 1944 with the development of nuclear technology: a point of immense technological advancement from which it will never be able to return. This is true for AI generally, but it is especially relevant in the context of a looming explosion in the adoption of AI genetics. As with nuclear power, this technological acceleration poses grave ethical risks that must be given serious attention. America cannot manage these risks in a vacuum, however, and the response to this technological development should take into consideration efforts to keep in check the proliferation of nuclear weapons during the first half of the Cold War. The United States cannot settle for merely negotiating with regimes that hold diametrically opposed definitions of bioethics (China, for example, is already deploying functioning artificial womb technologies) but must instead assert its terms from the outset to form a coalition that preserves humanity.
It is worth noting that not all manifestations of AI-enabled genetics are bad. For example, the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, its political malfeasance aside, is scoping a future of enhanced computational biology, where researchers can use simulated cells to conduct experiments.1 Because there is less demand for physical cells in the chain of research, the potential for enhanced and expedited remedies for genetic ailments using this kind of AI-powered biology is great. While beneficial developments like this one could actually slow the spread of unethical manipulations of the human form, the risk of abuse still exists and should be considered. If researchers can pursue even more innovation in simulated labs, for example, the temptation to develop human-animal chimeras, for example, will not be so acute.
American leadership in this area is essential because the future of AI-driven genetics is ghastly. Prototypes already exist for biobag artificial wombs that can gestate a fetus to full term.2 Integrations with AI would use in utero genetic manipulation to transform embryonic potential into mature babies. Such technology would divorce the marital embrace from reproduction. Americans still cling to Christian conceptions of the family that tie children to a mother and father. This notion persists despite legal and cultural onslaughts that aim to enshrine false notions of reality. A country with this moral framework can still protect against the dissolution of the human family via convenient technology. By contrast, China, a country that defines the human person exclusively by economic output, would almost certainly be less concerned with social structures that require moral and theological grounding. If China is allowed to win the AI genetics race, the family could lose any relationship to biological reality. This is a reality only the West is postured to comprehend. Biology is about more than the facts of science, but a complete framework of creation with a moral and theological grounding. Americans can, almost, take for granted the fact that biology, morality, and theology are intertwined. In a world of runaway AI-genetics, such assumptions will be much less certain.
To take one concerning example of AI-driven development, “Exogenic Chimeric Humanized Animals” are not-fully-human animals meant to produce organs for research and harvesting without crossing the lines of scientific ethics. The supposed acceptability of these humanized animals hinges on the claim that their bodies are merely hosts for helpful organs, but it is unclear what limiting principle would stop such experimentation on human beings.
Another example is “biocyborgs.” These are hybrids of human tissue, AI-driven synthetic biology, and machine interfaces that make it possible for artificial chimerism to push physiological limits beyond natural reproduction.3 It is feasible that an adversary nation could use such beings in conflict or create much scarier, more autonomous futures. The New Atlantis’s editor Ari Schulman, while paraphrasing the work of the bioethicist, Henry Greely, wrote in The New York Times that when couples realize the “benefits” of choosing the most genetically desirable offspring, “eventually a vast majority of pregnancies in the United States” will result from artificial genetic manipulation and insemination.4 Outside of the natural barrier of the mother’s womb, human tissue will likely be exploited at scale for the interests of various unethical actors.
At the very least, an unrestrained AI future would mean a human race that propagates without any relationship to biological reproduction. Even further, adversaries unconcerned with the Christian foundation of civilization will have a path to manipulate biology with technology in order to produce superhuman-esque entities. This is not normal, and such a problem requires political solutions that may otherwise be thought unacceptable.
The Moral and Geopolitical Crisis of AI Genetics
The psychiatrist and writer Aaron Kheriaty, writing in First Things, describes the infinite moral regressions of AI-enabled biology, including the potential for “ethically-sourced spare human bodies.”5 Exceptional data processing capabilities create the conditions to take advantage of genetic information to heal, alter, or create new biological reality.6 The intuition that such developments are a new stage in technological progress is well founded, and it would be wise to keep AI’s adoption in check.
Kheriaty writes about a particularly concerning example: “bodyoids,” human-like bodies missing essential components like a brain or central nervous system that are created for consumption and experimentation. Kheriaty suggests that though the fabrication of bodyoids for AI-enabled organs and genetic extraction is an extreme case, the moral decay of elite society leaves little to restrain the production of human beings for comparable exploitation. As the ability to engineer human and human-like beings advances, human agents will be increasingly likely to succumb to the greater temptation to exploit the human condition for the health and profit of those with the power and resources to do so.
Principled Americans, guided by the enduring principles of the Constitution, are well equipped to confront the grim, yet plausible perils of AI-driven bioethics. Other cultures and competitor nations will likely not have the same check on such a notion of progress. In the Fall 2025 edition of The New Atlantis, Hudson Institute Fellow Bill Drexel describes the inherently geopolitical future of AI-enabled genetics.7 China, a country that is dominated by a single ethnic group, is already beginning to adopt technology that could be used for a eugenics program targeting subsequent generations of Chinese people.8
Now-modest and even helpful scientific pursuits such as DNA-derived facial recognition9 and gene therapy10 present a reasonable case for the usefulness of AI genetics, but the potential for abuse is clear. Drexel implies that researchers in China and the United States have, at least for now, chosen not to create a human egg cell from other types of cells, despite having the technical ability to do so.11 This restraint reflects an awareness of the ethical and societal consequences that such an experiment would carry, but any limitations to development are voluntary. There seems to be little to stop a team of engineers from creating a human being outside of the embrace of a man and a woman and then growing such a person in a laboratory.12 While legislation to prohibit the worst abuses of AI genetics does exist,13 it does not set up strong enough barriers to actually stop the research and practice that could lead to such abuses. While there is formal policy to prevent the federal funding of specific scientific techniques, such as the introduction of human pluripotent stem cells into animals to create the chimeras mentioned above,14 that policy does not eliminate the possibility of private support of or funding for this research. In fact, federal funding for similar genetics research continues to push for the development of AI-driven genetics.15 The Brave New World is here.
Even before considering the moral and technological implications of advanced AI genetics, one has to acknowledge the alarming geopolitical implications. Adversaries such as China already have plans to leverage advancements in AI-enabled biology for military applications. From “super soldiers” to weapon–brain–computer interfaces, China seeks the integration of AI genetic technology into warfare.16 This would provide China with soldiers who endure, heal, and fight with superhuman proportions and could give it a military advantage over the United States. The integration of human brain power with AI mission command and weapon systems could also streamline delivery of autonomous weapons at scale. Perhaps most importantly, adversaries could consider humanoid entities to be less than human and therefore mere fodder for battlefield carnage. While we confidently hope America would never engage in a brutal AI genetics endgame, policymakers should still move to prevent adversaries, especially China, from pursuing such an inhuman advantage.
While the technical and geopolitical implications of AI genetics are alarming, the deeper crisis is metaphysical. The notion of progress that undergirds a blind drive for technological advancement could destroy the relationship between nature and humanity. Natural procreation, that which takes place between husband and wife and results in a genetically related child, is good as such. The particulars of statistics and political discourse aside, the natural world is worth affirming. God created something good, and creation should remain with Him.
A world where man can manufacture ever-closer approximations of man himself calls into question the very definition of the term. A society that aspires to create human-like beings without souls, replicants of life rather than life itself, commits an act of rebellion against God. The man-made human being is not merely a scientific marvel; it is a declaration of war on the natural order. To assume the role of God is to abandon the humility that grounds moral life and to invite a kind of destruction far greater than that wrought by any weapon. A civilization driven by the desire to be God will inevitably inflict suffering without limit, on others and ultimately upon itself.
America must lead the world in recognizing the accelerating development of AI-driven genetics. In doing so, it must also cultivate a shared moral ethos that can avert the inexorable consequences of reckless innovation. This is necessary because, absent decisive and prudent leadership, a dystopian future will be all but inevitable. Access to AI gene-editing technology, given its prohibitive cost at the outset, will be reserved for the wealthiest members of society.17 These elites, by enhancing their intelligence and athleticism through gene modification, would possess the power to establish a genetic “overclass.”18 Drexel’s warning that the AI genetics revolution may be a path toward eugenics is no longer an abstraction but a looming reality.19 If guided by moral clarity under American leadership, advancements in AI can be beneficial; otherwise, they will bring anguish.
The aftermath of World War II and America’s decision to drop nuclear weapons on Japanese cities presented a similar outlook of wonder mixed with despair. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was signed under the understandable presumption that nuclear weapons were spreading at such a rate that civilizational leaders could not control their potential existential threat to humanity. Any reasonable survey of the AI landscape and the specific direction of technological progress that could redefine humanity would lead one to the same conclusion about AI. Its ability to affect realities of the human condition such as reproduction and the formation of life is approaching faster than many hoped, and therefore the civilized world’s last chance to manage the onset of the new technology has arrived.
Establishing an AI Genetics Non-Proliferation Treaty
The United States should lead a coalition of nations in using diplomacy and international agreements to prohibit the use of artificial intelligence for creating or manipulating human life, or for other reproductive methods that sever life from the dignity of the human person. A ban on the testing and development of artificial intelligence for purposes that divorce creation from the natural rights of man may be the last tool of traditional politics available to moderate the unchecked adoption of the extrapolations of AI that could alter the human experience beyond recognition. Unilateral restrictions would cede undue technology supremacy to the United States’ adversaries, and voluntary means of delay would stand no chance in the face of immense progress and profit motives.
To seal enforcement gaps, such a treaty must ban private funding for AI genetics research, equating it to state violations and authorizing signatories to levy harsh penalties such as asset freezes and sanctions on violators. This approach would target profit-driven innovation, deterring venture capital from fueling technologies that erode human dignity and redirecting global finance toward ethical priorities.
The stakes are not only moral and technological but geopolitical. China seeks to create a genetically superior caste of humanity that will dominate the world order for subsequent generations. By nature, most twenty-first-century Americans will resist a rapid adoption of technology that produces AI-enabled, genetically altered human beings via in vitro–derived gametes. Instead of trying to win a race of destruction, America should use economic and diplomatic power to define the terms of the AI confrontation in a way that preserves a way of life centered on American power and the dignity of the human person that undergirds the West.
To do this, American policymakers must confront perverse notions of rights and justice to fulfill their obligation to preserve the natural course of function of the human condition. For the indefinite future, technological progressives will approach AI-enabled genetics and reproductive technology as a question of family formation and natalism. As liberals would have it, human beings have an inherent right to construct offspring in any setting, by any means, to fulfill the goal of forming a family. The false notion of rights that underlies this position is a debate for another day, but Americans must let the natural concept of justice persevere in the form of a commitment to maintaining the natural order of life on the world stage.
Yet this very worldview, though a formidable domestic obstacle, also underscores the urgency of advocacy: By first persuading fellow Americans of the perils in redefining rights as boundless technological entitlements, we can forge an ethical bulwark against AI-driven genetic overreach. In doing so, the pursuit becomes not merely preparatory for global persuasion but foundational in its own right, equipping the United States with a coherent moral compass for humanity’s encounter with these technologies and ensuring that justice rather than unchecked innovation guides an American future.
International Agreement in an Age of Nationalism
New diplomatic and international norms around technology should not be viewed as new manifestations of global governance meant to restrict human freedom. Instead, they should be seen as the necessary and available tools meant to moderate the unchecked spread of revolutionary technology. America should consider what a world without international agreements on nuclear weapons would have looked like. Thanks to the checks on this technology in the last century, the dystopian visions for the future did not transpire, and responsible commercial applications of the technology are making a necessary resurgence.
Even in an age of de-globalization, international agreements regarding AI are reasonable. Drexel’s analysis of China’s ability to harness AI genetics presents a very real, more serious threat to American sovereignty than overheated prophecies of extinction from the “green” movement.20 Using the weight of American hard and soft power now to secure an agreement that bans certain development on AI genetics in the future would represent a kind of statesmanship that embraces geopolitical and technological realities, not one that surrenders to globalist imperatives. The time to act is now, when America still sets the conditions of global affairs.
While there is a check on the dominance of superfluous international agreements that infringe on national sovereignty, certain frameworks for curbing AI through a treaty like the NPT still exist. The NPT—though challenged by growing tensions between nuclear supporters and detractors—has nevertheless been highly successful in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.21 Research shows that each year non-NPT members are about six times more likely to pursue nuclear weapons than NPT members.22 Given the dramatic ascent of new technology that presents such uncertain, troubling consequences, conservatives cannot dismiss these tools.
The hour is late, but all is not yet lost. The same nation that once bore the burden of shaping a nuclear order must now summon the courage to shape the future of artificial intelligence. AI genetics threatens not only to alter human life but to redefine what it means to be human. If America acts with vision and resolve, it can still draw the boundaries that safeguard dignity, freedom, and sovereignty. If it fails, others will seize the day, and the human person will become the raw material of technological ambition. History has given the United States another moment of decision. To rise to it is not merely to defend the West but to defend humanity itself.
Endnotes
1. Ewen Callaway, “Can AI Build a Virtual Cell? Scientists Race to Model Life’s Smallest Unit,” Nature, June 27, 2025, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02011-0.
2. Elizabeth Chloe Romanis, “Artificial Womb Technology and Clinical Translation: Innovative Treatment or Medical Research?” Bioethics 34, no. 4 (2019): 392–402, https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.12701.
3. Léo Pio-Lopez, “The Rise of the Biocyborg: Synthetic Biology, Artificial Chimerism and Human Enhancement,” New Genetics and Society 40, no. 4 (2021): 1–21, https://doi.org/10.1080/14636778.2021.2007064.
4. Ari Schulman, “The World Isn’t Ready for What Comes After I.V.F.,” New York Times, September 9, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/09/opinion/ivf-debate.html.
5. Aaron Kheriaty, “Zombie Bioethics,” First Things, September 29, 2025, https://firstthings.com/zombie-bioethics/, citing Jessica Hamzelou, “Ethically Sourced ‘Spare Human Bodies’ Could Revolutionize Medicine,” MIT Technology Review, March 25, 2025, https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/03/25/1113611/ethically-sourced-spare-human-bodies-could-revolutionize-medicine/.
6. Yuanhao Qu et al., “CRISPR-GPT for Agentic Automation of Gene-Editing Experiments,” Nature Biomedical Engineering (2025), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-025-01463-z.
7. Bill Drexel, “The AI Genetics Revolution Is Coming,” The New Atlantis, Fall 2025, https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-ai-genetics-revolution-is-coming.
8. Drexel, “AI Genetics Revolution.”
9. Tate Ryan-Mosley, “This Company Says It’s Developing a System That Can Recognize Your Face from Just Your DNA,” MIT Technology Review, January 31, 2022, https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/01/31/1044576/corsight-face-recognition-from-dna/.
10. Carly Kay, “AI-Powered CRISPR Could Lead to Faster Gene Therapies, Stanford Medicine Study Finds,” Stanford Medicine News, September 16, 2025, https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2025/09/ai-crispr-gene-therapy.html.
11. Drexel, “AI Genetics Revolution.”
12. Felix R. De Bie, Chase C. Binion, and Ryan M. Antiel, “Artificial Womb Technology: A More Physiologic Solution to Treating Extreme Prematurity,” European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology: X 25 (2025): 100359, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eurox.2024.100359.
13. Human-Animal Chimera Prohibition Act of 2025, H.R. 2161, 119th Cong. (2025), https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/2161/text.
14. Jennifer L. Brown, Kennedy Person, Walter Low, and Joseph P. Voth, “A Technological and Regulatory Review on Human-Animal Chimera Research: The Current Landscape of Biology, Law, and Public Opinion,” Cell Transplantation 32, no. 2 (2023), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373257214_A_Technological_and_Regulatory_Review_on_Human-Animal_Chimera_Research_The_Current_Landscape_of_Biology_Law_and_Public_Opinion.
15. Joe Allen, “Federal Research on Manipulating Brains and Rewriting DNA Should Worry Us All,” The Federalist, September 29, 2022, https://thefederalist.com/2022/09/29/federal-research-on-manipulating-brains-and-rewriting-dna-should-worry-us-all/.
16. Kjeld Friis Munkholm, “AI and Bioeconomy in China: A Comprehensive Analysis,” LinkedIn, July 24, 2024, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ai-bioeconomy-china-comprehensive-analysis-kjeld-friis-munkholm-%E5%AD%9F%E5%8F%AF%E5%92%8C-sqvtf/.
17. Jodie Rothschild, “Ethical Considerations of Gene Editing and Genetic Selection,” Journal of General and Family Medicine 21, no. 3 (May 29, 2020): 37–47, https://doi.org/10.1002/jgf2.321.
18. Irfan Biswas, “Ethical Dimensions and Societal Implications: Ensuring the Social Responsibility of CRISPR Technology,” Frontiers in Genome Editing 7 (August 20, 2025): 1593172, https://doi.org/10.3389/fgeed.2025.1593172.
19. Drexel, “AI Genetics Revolution.”
20. Drexel, “AI Genetics Revolution.”
21. Nina Tannenwald, “The Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime as a ‘Failed Promise’: Contestation and Self‑Undermining Dynamics in a Liberal Order,” Global Studies Quarterly 4, no. 2 (April 2024): ksae025, https://doi.org/10.1093/isagsq/ksae025.
22. Matthew Fuhrmann and Yonatan Lupu, “Do Arms Control Treaties Work? Assessing the Effectiveness of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty,” International Studies Quarterly 60, no. 3 (September 2016): 530–39, https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqw013.
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