HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO CREATE A CHILD, AND HOW MUCH WILL IT COST TO MEET HIM?

Death to the demoness Allegra Gellar! Death to Lionhead Studios!

Before railing into this 'thing', it ought to be noted that, yesh, the technology is rather incredible, and several genuinely positive usages could be distilled from this software (most that come to mind involve use as companions for those with mental struggles). That said, not only is this unnecessary in the general way that all entertainment is unnecessary, but it's also unnecessary because there are actual twelve-year-old boys, some of them even named Milo, that will gladly look at our drawings of fish if only we hand it to them.

Why do real people need to be replaced with these...these carefully crafted creations? Well, I guess real people aren't as "fascinated" by our lives as they could be. But Milo is the true captive audience. That long anecdote from your 2002 family vacation to Colorado - the one that everyone else drifts off during and starts texting? Milo will probably listen wide-eyed to the whole thing and then ask to hear it again. Skynet becoming self-aware is really just humans becoming immersed in tech-dependence.

Anyways, science fiction certainly has thought of this stuff, and it's rarely been happy about it. I mean, 'Natal' is to 'Natal' as 'Existenz' is to 'Existence'...