NEWS YOU CAN’T MISS

AI Love Is In The Air: The New Trend in China

In China, many young people are increasingly turning to AI companions for emotional support and even romantic relationships. An article by The Economist highlights how these virtual partners are gaining popularity as a way to cope with emotional loneliness.

Apps like Maoxiang (Catbox) and Xingye (Wilderness of Stars) are leading the trend. Maoxiang’s user base grew from 1 million in 2024 to 2.2 million in 2025, while Xingye surpassed 1 million users.

The article cites several reasons behind this rise:

• Loneliness: Social interaction has dropped sharply—by 2024, average daily socializing time was just 18 minutes.

• Convenience: AI relationships require no financial cost or emotional effort, unlike real-life dating.

• Realism: Advanced AI simulates emotions and offers personalized conversations, making the experience feel authentic.

While these virtual relationships may offer comfort, they raise concerns. China's birth rate is already critically low—the average number of children per woman fell to just 1.0 in 2024. For a population to remain stable, the average needs to be about 2.1 children per woman.

Experts warn that as more young people choose digital companionship over real-life relationships, it could worsen China’s population decline. The ease of virtual intimacy may further discourage marriage and family life, deepening the country’s demographic crisis.

By the way, this phenomenon isn't limited to China. In the United States, a 2024 YouGov survey found that 25% of adults aged 18–29 believe AI partners could take the place of real-life romantic relationships. 😳

Your Next Michelin Meal Might Be Imagined by AI

Imagine sitting down to a fancy nine-course meal… and finding out the chef’s name is “ChatGPT”.

According to this interesting piece by Pete Wells in The New York Times, that’s exactly what’s happening at Next, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Chicago. Chef Grant Achatz is teaming up with ChatGPT to design an entire nine-course tasting menu for 2026.

Here’s how it works: Achatz invents imaginary chefs—complete with names, backstories, even where they “trained.” Then he asks the AI to come up with dishes those fictional chefs might create.

The idea is to see how far AI can go in dreaming up creative, high-end food.

Some say it’s a glimpse into the future of creative cooking. Others feel it’s a gimmick that takes the soul out of their meal. What do you think?

Meet Maja Pantić, Professor at Imperial College London

Celebrating this week's Woman in Tech 🥳: Meet Maja Pantić, a trailblazing AI researcher and Professor of Affective and Behavioural Computing at Imperial College London, where she’s pioneering ways for machines to better understand human emotions and behavior.

Originally from Serbia, Pantić earned her BSc, MSc, and PhD in computer science at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, specializing in facial expression analysis.

She has held academic positions at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Twente, and Imperial College London, where she led groundbreaking work on the Zeno robot, designed to support children with autism.

As Research Director at Samsung’s AI Centre in Cambridge, she advanced multimodal learning and human-computer interaction. Later, she joined Meta as AI Scientific Research Lead, spearheading research on facial expressions, emotion, and social signals—helping power tools used by over a billion people on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.

With over 400 research papers and more than 50,000 citations, her work has had far-reaching impact across domains, from healthcare to autonomous vehicles.

Pantić is a Fellow of the IEEE and the Royal Academy of Engineering, and her many accolades include the BCS Roger Needham Award and a Dutch Research Council Junior Fellowship.

Her work continues to inspire a more human-aware future for AI, and the next generation of researchers building it. 🤗