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https://www.wsj.com/us-news/silicon-valley-high-iq-children-764234f8

Inside Silicon Valley’s Growing Obsession With Having Smarter Babies

Tech execs are paying tens of thousands to find brilliant dates or select high-IQ embryos. ‘They want to raise high-performing children.’

Illustration of a brain and an embryo, overlaid on a DNA sequence.

Illustration: Daisy Korpics/WSJ, iStock, Getty (2)

Zusha Elinson

Aug. 12, 2025 8:00 pm ET

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.

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Inside Silicon Valley’s Growing Obsession With Having Smarter Babies

Tech execs are paying tens of thousands to find brilliant dates or select high-IQ embryos. ‘They want to raise high-performing children.’

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