Ai Buddy is a set of animated characters powered by Artificial Intelligence that give support to kids while their parents are deployed to war. Or if they don’t make it back. Ai Buddy collects real time data and information from close relatives, social media and functional data to shape its personality. A Parallel process is being ran with social and Psychological professionals, to define human interactions and add an “emotion containment” data resource, to avoid stressful results in first iterations of the UX. Ai Buddy stays connected throughout the day sending messages to any smart device, constantly checking physical inputs to detect possible emergencies and using the information available online to help with homework. It can even read them a bedtime story, or play with them through VR. Also, it shares updates about the kids with the rest of the family to make sure they have a pulse on the emotional and physical well-being of the kid. If the parent passed away, it will help with the transition and deactivate once the child is psychologically ready to let it go.

The Beta version tested well with a number of families either with a parent deployed to or killed at war. Initial reactions are encouraging, and besides our partner organizations such as VidaxCenter that deal with kids under trauma and Children of Fallen Patriots that provide scholarships to children who lost a parent, we have shared the project with the leading organizations on this matter in the US with tremendous support. Funders of like-minded organizations are willing to support the beta development.

Millions of troops will be deployed in the next decade with millions of children left behind. The potential to have a positive impact is enormous. But there’s more. There are large potential new applications for Ai Buddy in the future with children who have a parent suffering from a terminal illness, convicted to prison, abducted or assassinated.

This is just the beginning for Ai Buddy.

A promising beta version has been completed. Provisional patent has been filed for. Philanthropists are lining up to help bring Ai Buddy to the world.

Ai Buddy is a platform for the whole world to reflect on the stupidity of war, on the reality of anxiety disorders in children who lose a parent and on the responsibility on the engineering and creative communities to take responsibility as they unleash the potential of Ai to aid mankind in creating a much more human world.