Like many people, I have a desire for children. I believe this desire is a natural instinct preserved through many generations of human evolution. However, children are very expensive (studies suggest one child costs $250,000). You have to buy a bigger house, bigger car, pay school fees, university fees, and then pay for costs like clothes, food, medical care, etc. The child can distract you from your job and thereby cost you a promotion or lower your salary because you work less to spend more time with the child.
How fantastic would it be then to have access to an artificial child, a machine whose features are accurate enough to resemble a human child? This machine will satiate an adult's evolutionary instincts for paternalism or maternalism while still being cheap and disposable.
The artificial child can have limbs that grow over time to simulate natural growth in a human child. There are three inputs to the artificial child: (1) vision, (2) audio, and (3) movement. Vision is what the artificial child can see. The child has a camera where its eyes are and can see its environment. The images picked up will be sent to a computer. Audio acts the same way as vision except the microphone picks up sound. There will be voice recognition software so that the child can understand human speech. Movement comes from its limbs. Parents like to touch their baby and move the baby around. When the customer touches and moves around this artificial child, the movements have to be received, digitalized, and then transmitted to the computer. For example, if the child is picked up, the baby will have to recognize this.
When information is inputted, it goes through a software that processes it and then comes up with output. The software will contain mathematical formulae and algorithms that simulate child behavior. The software will be created by programmers working with child psychologists. The software will need to be able to come up with enough random or creative output so that the artificial child's behavior is not too predictable.
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No doubt, if the "child" retains sufficient human characteristics to convince a parent it might qualify as a sentient human and all sorts of robot rights will be generated. It looks dangerous.
Those studies that suggest the price of a kid are stupid. Poor people have kids and do just fine. A child costs what you're willing to spend. If you don't buy fancy clothes, toys, college, it will cost less.
Being satisfied with a doll seems really unlikely too. Kids are much more fun when they start talking to you. I personnaly believe most people have an extra special attachement to their own biological kids. I think adopting or step-parenting is fine, but I think those parents are usually not-nearly as attached as a natural parent.
And I don't usually even care for other people's kids, so I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to 'satisfy' my kid-urge with a robot-doll.
A real child is easier/cheaper to start off with, has a service/support infrastructure in place, and can take care of you in your old age.
The only good thing with an Artificial child, you can turn it off, or quit if you don't care for it anymore. With a real child you cannot.
Oral
Who is your dealer?
This idea doesn't seem right to me for a couple of reasons:
1. I would seriously question a person's fitness as a parent if he or she wanted a child to be "disposable" for any reason.
2. What kind of being would this robotic child become ? When grown would these robots raise their own robotic families ? Would it kill in self-defense if you tried to switch it off ?
It's creepy - like that movie "The Stepford Wives"