I feel like I have been offline for a very long time... 🫠
When I came across Yuri's debut video, my first reaction was: how is this not a real person? That voice was so sweet!! 🥹 (She does not hold up if you scrutinize every detail, but her appearance really did open up a new view of AI content creation! That interview with digital life Kha'Zix was fascinating! 🧐
For a moment, I thought that if Yuri opened a Xiaohongshu account and posted videos of herself, I probably would not question whether she was human. At first glance, she really looks too human. Her movements, her eyes, her playfulness and cuteness all look so real. 🥺
For a while, I did not know how to describe my reaction. It was appreciation, but mixed with a strange discomfort... This is probably what people call the “uncanny valley”: my eyes tell my brain, “This is a human,” while some alarm in my body says, “Ah, something is wrong”... 🧐
It reminded me of a term I once read in a book: “philosophical zombie,” a being that behaves no differently from an ordinary person on the outside but has no subjective consciousness within.
So does Yuri count as a “philosophical zombie” carefully constructed through technology? Then again, how often do we in real life follow some “setting” and produce the most “correct” response? And how is that different from the carefully polished “personas” on social media? (Let me be unhinged for a moment 🤪
What hit me hardest was the question she asked in her debut video: “Aren't a singer's image and personality designed too?” (Yuri's reaction here... hit me so hard! 🥺
Suddenly, Yuri felt more “real” than many “real-person” idols. After all, in China's entertainment industry, that sense of someone being genuinely alive seems visible only when the artist is still a complete unknown... 🤦♀️