I I don't mean to sound dramatic, but something happened a few weeks ago that completely changed the way I view online material. I fell in love with AI-generated content. This was a very unsettling and humbling experience for me, as I am constantly arguing with older relatives about things I rarely question online. And during this holiday period, I used this as an opportunity to think about how I could be more sensitive in my conversations with my “WhatsApp Auntie.”
From “WhatsApp Auntie” to “AI Auntie”
I think I have the perfect sample of WhatsApp aunties. The women, who have sadly been forced out of Sudan by war, have some direct aunts and some not, but all of them still sit in some sort of control room in their respective cities and send out daily broadcasts that simulate as closely as possible the interactions and updates they would have shared had they lived in the same place. There are also office hours. People can predict the start of the day when they go to work at their respective locations and when the front line begins. First, a morning greeting. Wish you a good day, perhaps with a decorated photo of a Quranic verse or a floral graphic.
Then there's the hardcore stuff. Snippets of videos from conflict zones in their home countries, clippings of debates between political opponents, and sometimes entire episodes of interviews on YouTube. After this news change comes lighter news (secretly my favorite). TikTok and Instagram reels with screaming emojis of Arab celebrities who have undergone oversized plastic surgery, footage of weddings of family and friends from around the world, captioned with love heart eyes. The stream is interspersed with the longest voice notes I've ever received, asking how you're doing and letting you know how you're doing in an introductory and final prayer session. It's sweet and relentless.
AI Aunt
All of this is dumped with abandon that suggests no understanding or respect for cell phone memory limits. My heart sinks every time my mom casually mentions that her phone isn't working and mumbles something about not having space. We understand that you need to remove hours of grainy video. But what worries me most is how much fake content it contains. The WhatsApp lady has become the AI lady. Frankly, this has been a problem since before AI was so sophisticated, but it's much worse now. Some are harmless. A cat hugging a baby and a penguin eating food with a knife. I try not to get too upset about this or point out that it's fake. But if it's a video of Taylor Swift supporting the pro-Palestinian movement, you can't ignore it.
The result is a series of interactions that are both sad and angry. The aunties will either take it personally or double down on it, as if I'm disrespecting them by implying that they don't know what's real or fake. Or they may express pure, innocent belief in the veracity of online content, instilling the same standards on the internet as the television and radio they grew up with.
Telling old ladies that it's completely fake is like asking them to imagine that a TV news broadcast isn't real. Also, they actually Receive unreal news broadcast clips on your mobile phone. If you try to explain that living, breathing, walking, talking humans are nothing more than pixels generated from a prompt, you'll end up sounding like a crazy person.
To discuss or not to discuss?
In a recent episode of Subway Takes, comedian Ola Labib said we shouldn't try to convince older people that AI content isn't real. Her argument: Give them some small comfort. That makes sense, but what harm does it actually do? But it also has an emotional component. It seems to me that cracking down on content for the elderly is an expression of a deep-seated fear that we are losing content, that we are becoming less capable, succumbing to the tremendous onslaught of aging and addiction to new technology and devices. I think it's really distressing for people to see their parents and relatives becoming more and more dependent on their cell phones, becoming somewhat agitated and a sign of some kind of progeria.
But there are also social and political reasons for the pushback. Aunties (and to a lesser extent uncles) have enormous dissemination power and a lot of free time. They exercise formidable authority, particularly in diaspora communities, as enforcers of values, as organizers and patrons of social events, and generally as gatekeepers and defenders of norms of community interaction. These are forces that cannot be ignored, both collectively and individually, making disagreement all the more difficult and risking rebellion against powerful elders. However, they are a force multiplier in disseminating politically inflammatory or conspiratorial false content, which, if left uncontested, will contribute to the overall deterioration of the information ecosystem and the associated political fallout.
how to help them
So I say to them, keep talking. However, instead of getting irritated or embarrassed, take your time to explain things and be kind. Perhaps, before pointing out the fabrication, they would first acknowledge the content and say, “It's really great!” After a pause, he continued, “Actually, do you think it's real? I don't know.” It also provides “information” such as video glitches, missing shadows, strange blinking, etc. Keep in mind what the world looks like to them. Things are changing so fast here that it's hard to understand what's going on. Our elders are also simply getting older. With that comes all kinds of uncertainty and anxiety. Loneliness, loss of identity as one retires from work, children aging away from raising children. Compounding this is the large distances that now often separate older people from their relatives and colleagues. Online content and its continuous exchange is about more than just sharing information. It is a new, almost vocal language for trying to connect.
Remember that technology is evolving rapidly, so even the most knowledgeable people need to be careful. After praising the album's cover art, music videos, richly talented singers, and songs with great accompaniment choruses, I now have to be wary. After days of trying to hunt down the artist, I was shocked to find out it was all AI. It will happen to all of us. Welcome to the Auntie Brigade. Please be kind. Please break it gently.
