By Nesrine Malik
Publication Date: 2025-12-17 13:02:00
I I don’t want to sound dramatic, but something happened a few weeks ago that completely changed the way I view online material. I fell for AI-generated content. For someone who constantly argues with older relatives about how little they question what they see online, this was a deeply unsettling and humbling experience. And it got me thinking about how we could all use this holiday season as an opportunity to approach conversations with “WhatsApp aunties” more sensitively.
From “WhatsApp Aunties” to “AI Aunts”
I think I have the perfect selection of WhatsApp aunties. Unfortunately displaced from Sudan due to the war, a group of women who are constantly online, some direct aunts, some not, but all aunts nonetheless, sit in a kind of control room in their various cities and broadcast daily broadcasts that simulate, as best as possible, the interactions and updates they would have shared if they still lived in the same place. They even have an office…
