AI ‘blue aliens’ rising as health experts on China social media spark pseudoscience backlash

In China, some influential online voices offering health advice are neither doctors nor academics, but AI-generated blue aliens. Depicted as emissaries from an advanced civilisation, the bald, blue-skinned digital figures have humanlike bodies and glowing markings across their heads. The phenomenon reportedly traces its origins to Wanxiang Science, a popular-science channel on Douyin with more than 1.5 million followers. The account traditionally covered physics, but struck viral gold in August.

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