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BERKELEY, Calif.—Tsvi 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...