Young people can’t seem to stop watching AI slop videos of cats talking and fruits cheating on each other. Older people are enjoying a different kind of AI-generated content, which provides them with much-needed comfort and companionship.
Take Uncle Chang, a 67-year-old family friend who recently visited New York from Taiwan. As we chatted, the retired businessman showed me some YouTube videos that made him cry. In one, an AI-generated young blonde woman named Rose Bennett performs “Whiskey Was Louder Than Me,” a song about growing up with an alcoholic father after her mother passed away. In another, Rose sings “Brother Became My Father” together with her brother (also AI). Their AI father and the AI audience were in tears.
The videos reminded Chang of his own childhood. His mother, too, had left him, after suffering from his father’s beating. He was eventually raised by his older sisters. “To me, it was ‘sisters became my mother,’” Chang said. “These songs tell such touching stories.”
Chang’s experience reminded me of the “AI family” videos that are getting popular on Chinese social media. On TikTok-like platforms Douyin and Kuaishou, AI-generated chubby babies or handsome adult sons send daily blessings, tell viewers how much they miss them, and bring along virtual roses. Some AI influencers even take on the role of the elderly audience’s virtual lovers.
Tianqi Song, a Ph.D. candidate at the National University of Singapore, and her fellow researchers reviewed more than 200 videos featuring AI family members and interviewed 16 Chinese internet users who watch these videos. Aged between 50 and 75, the viewers grew up in large households but now have much smaller families, partly due to China’s now-abolished one-child policy.
AI-generated chubby babies or handsome adult sons send daily blessings, tell viewers how much they miss them, and bring along virtual roses.
The researchers found that the AI characters offer what real-world family members often do not. They express love directly (rare in Chinese families), show a higher level of filial piety, and talk about health and historical topics relevant to older people. One viewer told researchers that AI content had touched on experiences from her youth that her actual children, who hadn’t lived through the same history, couldn’t relate to. The AI videos also use soundtracks of folk music familiar to the older generation.
The viewers are well aware they are watching AI content, Song told me, and some feel proud they are embracing the latest technology. They also understand that AI can be exploited by scammers. Some operators of AI influencers profit by selling products, and viewers have gladly placed orders. “They know it’s AI,” Song said. “But the joy and companionship it brings is real.”
Many economies are grappling with a fast-aging population and a shortage of caregivers. Seniors need not only food and healthcare but also entertainment and companionship. AI could expand the elderly care options, with products like AI robot dolls and smart speakers already being deployed for seniors in South Korea and the U.S.
Older people are consuming these AI products not because they are more credulous but because they find AI to be genuinely helpful and fun. In a way, it’s similar to young people finding inspiration in pop stars or seeking virtual relationships through otome romance-simulation games. As AI becomes a part of aging life, we should also pay attention to potential risks concerning privacy, addiction, and how AI providers are profiting from older people’s emotional needs.
Uncle Chang suspected his beloved singers were AI-generated after a few plays — the Bennett family’s singing seemed too good to be real. He confirmed this with Gemini, which has become his virtual assistant for everything from navigation to caring for his bee farm. Chang still appreciates the music videos, although he no longer cries over them as much as he used to. “Now I know they are AI-generated,” he said. “They have become a bit less moving.”