"I'm running out of time, but I'm also not gonna be like, 'I'm having a baby for the sake of having a baby,'" said the younger of the two. "One thing I would recommend," replied the older woman, "if it's an option: freeze your eggs." As a woman, you get to a certain age and babies – hypothetical, expected, realised – suddenly seem ubiquitous: in friendship circles, on social media, in targeted advertising for pregnancy tests and public health messages. But for women of my generation, the decision whether to have children feels more existentially fraught and morally complex than ever before. I have always wanted kids. I have always felt an uncomplicated joy at the chubbiness of babies' limbs and the infectiousness of a child's laughter.

Robots are helping to keep the lights on in China's Anhui province. The robots look remarkably like Disney's lovable "Wall-E." Don't let that fool you, though. The machines are hard at work. Humans tell the robots what to keep an eye on, but the inspector bots do their job on their own.