Bringing Digital Children To Life

An article by Ayelet Noff    6 Comments

Mike Marcus, the artist whose exhibition I discussed in yesterday’s post, is looking for volunteers to help him create the Facebook application that I suggested. The application would allow you to create digital children with your friends by creating a digital “genetic” synthesis of the two profile pictures. In addition, Mike writes me:

“The interesting thing is, will these virtual offspring be limited to just pixels or could they develop some sort of personality? Is it possible that these beings could somehow be infused with a discrete synthesis of both parents ideas and beliefs?”

This raises an interesting point. What if the application allowed you not only to create a digital image of your child but actually bring him to life by giving him personality traits from each parent. These traits can be identified based on the information each parent gave on his profile regarding his political views, religious views, beliefs, tags, even the applications that he found an interest in adding.

Such a unique application would undoubtedly become very popular and raise a great deal of questions regarding our evolution as a species.

Would love to hear from anyone who wants to get involved in this project.

Technorati tags: digital children, exhibition, breeding, children, digital, art, mike marcus, exogeny, facebook, genetics, virtual, avatar, tags, evolution, social network