We’ll have ‘virtual’ babies within 50 years, AI expert predicts

If you thought the Tamagotchi Generation was a 1990s phenomenon, think again.

In the not-so-distant future, those looking to expand their families may opt to do so with the help of artificial intelligence.

The average American child costs parents more than $230,000 by the time they reach the age of 17, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

A digital kid, on the other hand, could have all its needs met for less than $25 per month — that’s just about $5,100 by the time they reach high school graduation — according to the UK’s leading artificial intelligence expert.

Amid poverty, disease epidemics, climate change and overcrowding, experts worry that the estimated 11 billion people that will populate Earth by 2100 won’t get the food, health care and other essential resources they need for survival. And that’s a real concern for would-be parents, according to a 2020 YouGov poll that found nearly 10% of adults have already chosen to remain childless for these reasons, while another 10% cited the financial impact of having kids.

“Based on studies into why couples choose to remain childless, I think it would be reasonable to expect as many as 20% of people choosing to have an AR [augmented reality] baby over a real one,” said Catriona Campbell, a former technology adviser for the British government and a British Interactive Media Association Digital Hall of Fame inductee.

This “game-changing” outlook “could help us solve some of today’s most pressing issues,” she said.

“Virtual children,” some experts believe, could supplant real ones — becoming commonplace by the early-2070s, Campbell told South West News Service. By combining computer-generated imagery with machines that can learn as humans do, virtual children that look like real ones would be able to recognize and respond to their parents, and simulate real emotional responses as kids do.

“Virtual children may seem like a giant leap from where we are now, but within 50 years technology will have advanced to such an extent that babies which exist in the metaverse are indistinct from those in the real world,” added Campbell, whose new book, “AI by Design: A Plan For Living With Artificial Intelligence,” is out this week.

The technology would be made possible with advances in artificial intelligence and augmented reality technology, including “touch-sensitive” gloves to help parents actually feel their children, and glasses to envision them in our real environment.

Campbell has dubbed this vision of the future family the Tamagotchi Generation — in a reference to the keychain toy of the ’90s made up of a tiny digital pet that owners were required to “feed, “play with” and even “medicate” on a regular basis. But in an advanced virtual reality setting, lifelike kids could grow and mature in realtime, and without putting stress on the natural environment and resources — the first truly eco-friendly kids.

“This will lead to the first, fully digital demographic which, although somewhat strange on first appearance, in fact represents what could be one of mankind’s most important technological breakthroughs since the advent of the Bronze Age given its potential impact on global populations and societal change,” she said.

The technologist also suggested that parental satisfaction could be even higher with virtual children — with more control over how their digital spawn is designed. Their lifespan could be preprogrammed, and exist in real time, or allow parents to “activate” them at their convenience, as children on-demand.

It may also serve as a tool for parents to test run having children before creating real ones, or help parents who can’t have their own find the family that otherwise would not have been possible.

“As the metaverse evolves, I can see virtual children becoming an accepted and fully embraced part of society in much of the developed world,” said Campbell.