Sensor-board approved

Don't hate on AI-generated ASMR. It itches all the right spots in the brain, with no waste and endless variations of soothing content

- By Tanisha Saxena

Everywhere we look, the world is grappling with AI. There are genuine fears of job losses and collapsing economies. Authentic work of creative folks is being scraped to generate generic content by machines. AI is telling us how to cook, where to vacation, how to mend a broken heart, which employees to lay off. No one's quite happy. Except in one area.

With ASMR – the feelgood Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response content – the bots aren't just thriving, they're delivering on every oddly satisfying sensation. Digitally generated clips of samosas, slicing open in perfect slo-mo are lighting up all the right parts of our brain. We're watching cats morph into fruit or capybaras dissolving into clouds, or apples slowly melting into the ether without worrying that actual lives were harmed for this content.

On YouTube, nearly 1.3 million people have watched an hour-long reel of AI-generated beds – made of candy, clouds, even parrots. There's no waste, no mess, no ethical violations involved in the scratching the itch in our brains. The internet, it turns out, can soothe as much as it stimulates.

Tingle bells

In Kota, Rajasthan, 28-year-old sales executive Neha Johri admits to an unusual fixation: She likes listening to the clinking of cutlery. She'll rewatch a scene on TV just to hear how the knife scraped across porcelain, the clink of wineglasses, the hollow tap of a ladle on a bowl.