We tried a variant of this at IBM Research back in the early 1990s. ELIZA was the thing back then. We teamed with a Boston hospital to support families with leukemic children. The thought was that fathers didn’t ask questions, but that they might ask a computer in the middle of the night. So it was set up as masses of questions a father might have about the situation and phrased as a personal conversation. We also provided videos to repeat instructions they were given while still in shock over the diagnosis so they could actually learn how to support medical issues. I had a cameraman slip down the wall during one of the video sessions.
As for young boys creating companions, actually doesn’t seem like a bad idea if you had more child controls around the app aimed at kids under 18. Controls based on societal norms to help a child become the sort of adult we want them to be to improve society, not degrade it. If kids need to learn how to interact when they’re not learning it at home, why NOT a computer to guide and give positive feedback when there’s positive interactions with the companion?
My dad worked as a senior engineer at IBM in East Fishkill and at the Thomas J Watson Research Center on Kitchawan Rd. My mom also worked at the research center on Kitchawan Rd