I don’t want to sound dramatic but, a few weeks ago, something happened that has completely changed how I view online material. I fell for AI-generated content. For someone who is constantly squabbling with older relatives about how little they question what they see online, this was a profoundly unsettling and humbling experience. And it made me think about how, during this holiday period, we could all use this as an opportunity to approach those conversations with the “WhatsApp aunties” more sensitively.
From ‘WhatsApp Aunties’ to ‘AI Aunties’
I think I have the perfect sample of WhatsApp aunties. Sadly displaced from Sudan due to war, a permanently online group of women, some direct aunts, some not, but all aunties nonetheless, sit in a control room of sorts in their different cities and send out daily broadcasts that simulate as much as possible the interactions and updates they would have shared had they still been living in the same place. They even have office hours. One can divine the start of the day in their respective locations as they clock in and the forwards begin: First, it is morning greetings, maybe an embellished picture of Quranic verses or a graphic of flowers, wishing you a good day.
Then, the hardcore stuff. Snippets of videos from war zones back home, clipped debates between political antagonists, and sometimes entire YouTube episodes of interviews. After this news shift comes the lighter one (secretly my favourite): TikTok and Instagram reels of Arab celebrities with too much plastic surgery accompanied by scream emojis, footage from family and friend weddings across the world, captioned with love heart eyes. The stream is interspersed with the longest voice memos you will ever receive, asking how you are and telling you how they are with an introductory and concluding prayer session. It is sweet and relentless.
AI Aunties
All of this is dumped with an abandon that suggests no understanding of or respect for phone memory limitations. Whenever my mother casually mentions that her phone is acting up and mutters something about no space, my heart sinks. I know that hours and hours of deletions of grainy videos are upon me. But most galling is how much fake content it includes. The WhatsApp aunties have become AI aunties. This was frankly a problem even before AI became so sophisticated, but it is now much, much worse. There is the harmless stuff; cats hugging babies or penguins feeding themselves with cutlery. I try not to get too agitated by this or point out that it’s fake. But when it’s videos of Taylor Swift endorsing the pro-Palestine movement, it’s impossible to let it slide.
The result is a series of exchanges that are both saddening and enraging. Aunties will either take it personally, like I am disrespecting them by implying they can’t tell what’s real or not, and double…
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