June 24, 2025
MANILA – AI has found the key to mainstream acceptance: Make it cute.
Appearances matter when it comes to getting others aboard the AI train, and eliciting human emotion through adorable animals has proven much more effective than mimicking realism and showing the wondrous technical capabilities of AI.
After all, if AI is a dangerous precedent and a threat to creativity, why is it friend-shaped?
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AI’s new (adorable) mask
According to Fran Lu of the South China Morning Post, AI-generated pet dramas are amassing hundreds of millions of views, and earning their ‘creators’ thousands of dollars per month with minimal to no expense. These ‘dramas’ typically feature dogs or cats as subjects, making them perform human actions, with some videos unfolding a full-blown plot.
But these aren’t limited to Chinese-run platforms. According to long-time YouTuber MoistCr1TiKaL, the third most-viewed video on YouTube for a time was of an AI-generated scene of a pug saving a baby from an airplane crash.
However, the virality hasn’t been reserved for plot-filled videos. A scroll through my personal algorithm has me encountering tons of AI-generated clips, from cats hugging to the fake emotional support kangaroo many believed to be real.
Same threat, different face
“A video about a kangaroo trying to check in to an aeroplane—[it] fundamentally doesn’t really matter whether you engage with the idea that’s a deepfake or not. It’s just funny and interesting,” says Dr Alex Connock, an AI expert at Oxford University in reaction to the kangaroo video.
An AI-generated video of a real-life action scene threatens jobs, human creativity, and a future where a two-hour film can be made at the click of a button and with little to no thought.
An obviously fake pet video doesn’t carry that same weight. It doesn’t scare or divide people. It doesn’t spark conversation on AI’s technological capabilities, and it doesn’t leave concerns about the long-lasting effects it may have in the future. It’s just cute.
But, AI and where we seemingly draw the line—that is one goal post that shouldn’t simply be moved based on appearances.
Social media has several niches, and cute animals are one of them. Whether it be Pudgy Penguins, Milk & Mocha Bear, or Tonton Friends, their creators spend days and weeks sketching and writing scenes for their accounts.
AI content creators threaten these artists by posting similar content that is just as or even more popular, and for not even a fraction of the effort and talent put into making organically-made art.
And we’re just talking about animations or digital art. What about the deep fakes? What about fake news?
The exact place AI will have in society in the future is a conversation that will continue for years to come. But for AI creations at the expense of people? The line preventing that reality shouldn’t have to move just because it’s now suddenly cute.