Have you ever seen the movie "The Island"? I'm curious what your reaction to it would be.

> If we can ever get over the societal (religious?) ick factor

I believe those kinds of "ick" factors are there for a reason - protecting us from a descent into deep dystopia or something.

Implementing new human things at scale often has unanticipated indirect negative consequences.

I think that in this case, the ick factor is because evolved traits can only work with relatively simple patterns.

My guess is for many of us, our gut says "looks like a human therefore is human"; if you try to tell gut instinct it's fine because there's no brain, you're gut's response is "Brain and brain! What is brain?"

My gut seems to care more about dynamic behaviour than static appearance, but for what it's worth — and despite being able to understand the premise of @echelon's suggestion without being upset by it — even I find images of a real, natural, human birth defect where the brain is missing, to be horrifying (content warning: do not google "anencephaly" unless you're strong stomached).

> Have you ever seen the movie "The Island"? I'm curious what your reaction to it would be.

It's a typical Hollywood sci-fi film with the usual Hollywood lessons and platitudes.

We wouldn't be producing clones with brains or consciousness. We might even have to modify the spine and stomach.

So there's no thinking at all. They'd be like plants.

Most of the ick factors are because of our empathy, which triggers upon seeing another human being in "icky" states of being and makes us imagine what it would feel like to be in such a state.