For all intents and purposes, the human race has created a second dimension – a digital one – where we conduct a great deal of our basic daily routine.
Instead of paper and pen, we’re sending texts and emails. Our banking is almost all done from the comfort of our phone or laptop. Most of us wouldn’t even know where the box office is to buy tickets for concerts or sporting events. Heck, some of us even get our groceries via an app.
This melding of worlds is accelerating as well, with some even pushing for us to join the “Metaverse” and conduct a great deal more of our social interactions in the digital space.
And, according to some…we may even begin raising our own digital children.
Author Catriona Campbell believes parents will want to care for digital children in virtual reality, using a headset to feel like they’re really there with a CGI kid.
The idea is terrifying.
In the book, she says: “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.”
She adds: “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.”
All this while many of us still feel slightly uncomfortable using our real names online.
