An artificial intelligence expert claims digital children will replace real children to ease the population crisis.
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AI expert Catriona Campbell explained in her new book “AI by Design: A Plan For Living With Artificial Intelligence” about the possibility of digital babies becoming more acceptable in society due to concerns of overpopulation. According to TOO FAB, Campbell called this theory the “Tamagotchi Generation” and says by the next 50 years, technology will become advanced to the point where babies will exist in the metaverse. “As the metaverse evolves, I can see virtual children becoming an accepted and fully embraced part of society in much of the developed world,” she explained.
Campbell added that haptic technology, gloves, and suits that provide tactile feedback will allow parents to experience physical touch i.e. hugging their virtual children. Additionally, the virtual children will have facial expressions that are similar to human children.
“On the basis that consumer demand is there, which I think it will be, AI children will become widely available for a relatively small monthly fee. Make no mistake that this development, should it indeed take place, is a technological game-changer which, if managed correctly, could help us solve some of today’s most pressing issues, including overpopulation.”
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Parents are also able to experience their virtual children go through life stages or freeze them at any age. The children will also be able to develop cognitively and emotionally as they “grow up.” For example, digital children will be capable of speech by responding to their parents based on facial recognition and voice analysis.
“We’re already well on our way to creating the Tamagotchi generation which, for all intents and purposes, will be ‘real’ to their parents. On the basis that consumer demand is there, which I think it will be, AI children will become widely available for a relatively small monthly fee.”
A company based in New Zealand called Soul Machines is already coming up with the idea under the project “BabyX.”
“Over seven years ago, Soul Machines pioneered research into progressing human-machine collaboration by taking a radically different approach. By combining models of physiology, cognition and emotion with advanced lifelike CGI, we set out to create a new form of biologically inspired AI. BabyX was our first developmental prototype designed as both a stand-alone research project and as an expandable base to feed into commercial computer agents. She enables us to explore human co-operation with machines and the foundations for creating a digital consciousness. BabyX was designed for research and ‘she’ allows Soul Machines to not only explore the models of human behavior but also to create autonomous digital beings. BabyX provides a foundation from which we learn, experiment, and continue to develop the world’s first end-to-end solution for dynamically creating, teaching, managing, and deploying Digital People,” their website reads.