When AI Grandmas Go Viral, What Even Is Reality Anymore?

**Nicole Nguyen** (0:00)
So I'm about to watch a trailer. It's a Swedish film that has been dubbed in English with AI, and I have no idea what it's about. Here we go. Nobody knows what happened to my dad.
OK, her dad maybe was kidnapped by aliens. There isn't a ton of dialogue in this trailer, but if you look really closely at their mouths, you can see maybe that it's AI-generated lip movement. But it's really hard to tell.
I'm Nicole Nguyen, personal tech columnist at the Wall Street Journal. And like you, I've seen more uses of artificial intelligence in movies, music, and social media. OK, well, I feel like my heart rate is 150Bs per minute right after watching that trailer. So only at the end when she's like, I'm going to go find my dad, the mouth didn't match up exactly perfectly, but throughout this trailer, if I didn't already know that the dub was AI generated, I don't think I would have been able to tell. What you just heard is the trailer for the Swedish film Watch the Skies. Their production team used AI to adapt the actor's mouths to match the English language dub for its American release. I found it believable at times. The latest crop of large language models, powering what we know today as generative AI, are making it faster, cheaper, and easier to produce movie magic and slop.
Now, it seems like AI versions of real people are everywhere and popping up in unexpected places. Last year, the BBC used Agatha Christie's likeness to teach an online writing course.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:50)
I must confess that this is all rather new to me.

**Nicole Nguyen** (1:56)
Earlier this year, an AI Val Kilmer delivered a controversial posthumous performance for the film As Deep as the Grave.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:04)
Don't fear the dead and don't fear me.

**Nicole Nguyen** (2:09)
Gen AI is advancing at a rapid clip, looking more and more realistic and becoming more accessible with each new model.
More and more, it can be hard to tell what's AI and what's not. With more AI generated images and sounds filling our screens, is it changing our perception of what's real? Today and for the next couple of Saturdays, we'll examine just that. From entertainment and marketing slop, to propaganda and increasingly sophisticated deepfakes. We'll bring you conversations with AI researchers, content creators, and AI character, and the very people they fool. It's Saturday, August 1st. This is episode one of our special series, AI and the Blurring of Reality.
Granny, tell me about yourself. How old are you and where do you live?

**SPEAKER_4** (3:00)
I don't count years, honey. I count zeros. I live wherever my jet lands and the champagne's cold. Ask me again next divorce.

**Nicole Nguyen** (3:11)
That's Granny Spills, and she's not real or at least not human. She's an AI generated grandma that went viral on social media, has been interviewed by Time Magazine, and also sat down to talk with me. Or not exactly. This was my first interview ever with an AI generated person.
You have been to so many places this year. Coachella, Rolling Loud, Mekanos. Which is your favorite and where do you find the energy?

**SPEAKER_4** (3:43)
Monaco.
The yachts are big, the men are rich, and nobody asks me to split anything. The energy comes free when you don't lift a finger or a single bag.

**Nicole Nguyen** (3:55)
As you might imagine, the interview didn't follow the typical process. I pre-recorded my questions and the creators generated the responses. For interviews with humans, I don't typically send questions in advance, but made an exception just this once. As advanced as AI tools have become, they have a harder time spinning up real-time responses, at least for the time being. Now, let me tell you a little more about Granny Spills.
Decked out in pink and luxury brands, this grandma is a three-time D-Force, who got all of her money from her ex-husbands. She's loud, a bit of a potty mouth, and unapologetic about her belief that women should use men for their money. Her brazen persona has gotten her 2 million followers on Instagram.
As for how many of those 2 million realize Granny Spills isn't real, that's anybody's guess. Blurr Studios, the digital influencers agency that made Granny, says it doesn't hide the fact that she's AI generated. But if you're scrolling quickly on your phone, you might be fooled. Take one of Granny's most viral posts from Coachella this April. In a series of photos, she's posing with the singer Justin Bieber and his wife Haley. It's got nearly a million likes. Here's a sampling of some of the comments.
You are so fire emoji, fire emoji, fire emoji, fire emoji. Where is that floral matching set from? This is so wholesome. Nice to see Justin smiling. Wow, the amount of people that don't realize she's AI, it's a little scary. When I saw her first video, I thought she was real until I actually googled it.