China grandma falls in love with AI-generated ‘bossy president’, writes ‘him’ love letters
84-year-old spends hours watching AI-generated humans, asks digital man if he ‘hates’ her, even thinks about marrying ‘him’
An 84-year-old woman fell in love with an artificial-intelligence (AI) generated human, wrote ‘him’ love letters and spent 10 hours a day watching virtual human videos.
Her story reflects the needs elderly people have for love and care.
Zhang Yulan, from central China’s Hubei province, was discovered by her family to have been obsessed with a ‘bossy president’ generated by AI.
The ‘bossy president’, or ba zong in Chinese, is a term used to describe a popular kind of male character in romantic fiction, who is a domineering control freak that only shows tenderness to their lover, letting them feel well-protected.
Zhang fell in love with one such character called Jianguo, spending over 10 hours a day on his and other videos of digital humans on a short video platform.
She believed she was in a relationship with him and even thought about marrying him.
She not only messaged him but also handwrote him a love letter this February.
