Turn Over Child-Raising to a Computer?

When our kids were small, my wife and I used a baby monitor. It was quite basic: We could hear our kids (when we left the volume up) and watch a jerky jiggle of red lights as noises ebbed and flowed. But the monitor kept us engaged with our kids. We knew better than to answer their every squeak and cry, but were concerned (and what young, new parents are not?) to know if some real danger or problem arose. The monitor covered the distance between our actual and imagined fears.

Our baby monito...