14 DAY TRIAL // The US Department of Defense (DOD) is advocating the creation of a new computer software that would replace the familiar faces of parents in the eyes of children left at home while they are serving their country. Although the department admits that such a substitution is not exactly the best option for everyone involved, it does argue that it's better than nothing, and that the new option could someday provide children with critical emotional support in their time of need.
At this point, officials are soliciting offers from software designers, as to the layout and general look of the new “virtual parents.” Any development avenue is opened at present, but the general feeling in Washington is that the computer programs will grow to be a virtual replica of a baby's mom or dad. They will most likely have prerecorded messages, which would be played back once a query has been made. It's possible that the system could require a microphone as well, so that the built-in Artificial Intelligence (AI) could recognize and process spoken language.
“The stresses of deployment might be softened if spouses and especially children could conduct simple conversations with their loved ones in immediate times of stress or prolonged absence,” a DOD handout says. Currently, more than 155,000 children of servicemen and women in the United States are growing up with either one or both of their parents missing, deployed on battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq. Officials are seeking to address this problem and to make them safe again.
Psychologists have a different point of view. They say that subjecting a child to seeing the same images of their parent or parents repeating themselves over and over again could have bad effects on their minds. They could perceive the parents as limited, and as not having all the answers they need. This would make the little ones less likely to open up to their parents, which could only cause trouble in the long run. However, there is still some way to go before the system is implemented, so hopefully we won't have to find out what the effects of growing up without one or both parents are.