Virtual pets

I wonder whether virtual pets will really be a thing, as extended reality starts to become pervasive. I think it comes down to the question of whether we would think of an artificially intelligent entity as “alive”.

I don’t mean this in an intellectual sense, but in an emotional sense. There is a kinship that we have with any fellow living creature that possesses an organic brain.

We understand such a creature to be a feeling, thinking being, however different from us. It is not clear that we would ever think the same way about an entity that is simulating a brain via artificial intelligence, however faithful the simulation may appear.

If I had to venture a guess, I would guess that virtual pets will never be a thing in the way that real pets are. In this domain, the difference between real and simulated is simply too primal, and the potential for true emotional bonding hinges upon that difference.