Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
SM Entertainment‘s fan platform DearU has announced an AI Pet Bubble service for Daeng, the cat of SHINee member Taemin. The platform promotes this sign of the apocalypse as a way for fans to connect with artists in an “even more intimate way“.
According to Dear U, the AI Pet Bubble service will be no different from the existing K-Pop idol Bubble service. The pet, powered by AI, will create one-on-one chatrooms where users can “communicate” with the pet. Dear U noted that other artists (and presumably their pets) are expected to participate in the AI Pet Bubble service soon.
It also reportedly has like special character diaries with stories about the artist, which seems like it’s gonna be AI making up interactions between a real-life person and a real-life pet. Like AI fanfiction or something? I dunno, man.
These K-pop companies are all hilariously obsessed with integrating AI into art, where currently all it does is provide shittier visuals and vocals, really only being “good” for these shameless cash grabs so far. Guess we’ll see how far parasocial relationships can truly be monetized with this.
I would say nobody is dumb enough to give this idea a bunch of money, but people already pay these platforms for the chance to be effectively marketed towards by idols via communication, so anything is possible.
