Young workers in China are finding a strange new way to deal with workplace stress by turning their bosses into virtual pets. The trend involves using artificial intelligence to create digital characters based on real people. Users can then make the characters perform funny or embarrassing actions on their computer screens.
The South China Morning Post reported that AI desktop pets are becoming increasingly popular in China. Unlike older virtual pets, which followed a small number of fixed actions, newer AI-powered versions can be customised to look and respond in different ways.
Users can upload a photograph and give instructions to an AI application to create a personalised virtual pet. People who do not know how to make one themselves can also pay for the service, with prices ranging from about 9.9 yuan to several hundred yuan, according to the South China Morning Post.
In early August, an internet user known as Jiuyuechushi created a virtual pet based on billionaire Elon Musk to show how easily a boss could be turned into a digital character.
The virtual character could bow, serve tea and even hit itself. It could also appear to struggle when moved with a computer mouse and climb along the edges of a screen.
Another internet user, known as "Miss Reese Loves to Dream", shared instructions for turning someone she disliked into a virtual pet. The character could crawl across the screen, kneel and apologise.
Others programme boss-inspired virtual pets to declare "no more overtime" or "promotion and pay rise," while some recreate friends or partners gossiping in a corner of the screen.
"My boss stressed me out in the morning, so I returned the favour with his desktop avatar in the afternoon," one user joked.
"We may not dare to flip the table and quit, but at least we can click our mouse to fight back," another user noted.
The South China Morning Post said the trend is not only being used for workplace frustration. Some people are also using AI pets as a way to keep digital memories of pets that have died.
Virtual pets are not new. They became popular on computers and messaging platforms in the early 2000s, when small digital characters could move around screens while people worked, chatted or browsed the internet.
AI is now making these pets more advanced, allowing them to provide a more interactive form of digital companionship.
