Marriage guidance, meal plans and mysticism: Egyptians turn to AI for everyday help

Tools such as ChatGPT used to solve personal problems and for cultural satire

In her apartment in Giza’s Faisal neighbourhood, Nourhan Ragab, 43, breathed a sigh of relief. Her children had gone to school and university and she could now return to a pressing conversation with ChatGPT about the suitability of a young man who had recently proposed to her daughter.

Ms Ragab is one of the many Egyptians who have become increasingly fascinated with artificial intelligence.

Some, like her, have developed what they describe as “friendships” with AI language models such as ChatGPT, Claude and others, which they consult over private thoughts and life events.

Others have engaged with AI-generated videos and photos that express aspects of Egyptian culture.

“My younger daughter showed me ChatGPT for recipes and beauty tips, but I quickly realised it had information on so much more and spoke Arabic very well,” Ms Ragab says. “When a well-off suitor proposed to my daughter, we had doubts about his behaviour, so I started discussing it with ChatGPT.”

The suitor had displayed tyrannical traits, demanding that her daughter, Nourhan, 19, drop out of her media studies university course.

He also had a very traditional view of marriage and was clear that his wife would have to spend most of her life at home or around him. He ruled out the possibility of working or solo travel for her, two things Nourhan dreamt of doing.

Ms Ragab said that despite her concern that his attitude would be incompatible with her daughter, she did not reject him outright. This was because he had offered to cover many of the wedding costs that the bride’s family typically pays and she was concerned that with the high cost of living, she would never be able to get her daughter married.

“While I understand completely that in our Arab societies, there are traditional roles for the wife and husband, with the man being the leader, it’s important to differentiate between leadership and total control,” read part of a response that ChatGPT gave Ms Ragab.

It also advised that she consider her daughter’s rights and warned that “if this suitor insists that his wife be completely obedient even to the point of abandoning her own dreams of travelling and working, that could pose a significant challenge”.

Ms Ragab returned to the suitor's family with her concerns, and they told her they did not think her daughter was a suitable match for their son.

When told about the break-up, the chatbot’s response was essentially a longer form of “good riddance”.

In Ms Ragab’s case, ChatGPT provided a role that a century ago might have been filled by a grandfather, village elder or priest. Others such as Beheira resident Amal Gohary, 34, have used ChatGPT as a financial planner.

Ms Gohary said she found AI platforms useful for putting together budget grocery lists. She has used them to generate nutritious, affordable meal plans for her and her five children, which she has found very helpful amid record-high levels of inflation.

However, Egypt’s fascination with AI goes beyond its ability to help with personal matters.

AI craze sweeps Egypt’s social media

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The country's social media channels are inundated with AI-generated images and videos, ranging from clips depicting Egyptian cultural stereotypes to political satire.

One video imagines the Mona Lisa having married an Egyptian farmer, and shows her baking traditional bread, leading a water buffalo by a rope and serving fried duck to her husband.

The video’s comedy value derives from the juxtaposition of the symbol of European cultural sophistication with Egyptian rural pride in its simple way of life and community structures. This contrast is a common theme in Egyptian literary and artistic works.

Another video shows a kaftan-clad Egyptian man telling another about a neighbour who has been digging under his home for antiquities. The second man proceeds to go through the town shouting the news through a megaphone. Digging for antiquities, although outlawed by the state, remains a common practice in rural Egyptian communities.

In another video, a seller of kebda – fried liver – sandwiches, a street food particularly popular in Cairo’s lower-income districts, is seen bragging about the quality of his meat, only for a talking dog to walk into the frame and lament the death of his father, who he says is in the sandwich.

The idea that kebda carts serve dog meat is an old joke that has been depicted in many Egyptian films, including 2004’s smash hit Khalti Faransa. However, it is based in truth, with the police periodically shutting down restaurants for this reason.

A sizeable portion of the AI-generated media in Egypt centres on the society’s obsessive fascination with the supernatural, occult magic and the “evil eye”, or hasad.

In one widely shared video, a woman praises the size and luxury of a nearby house, only for the structure to come crumbling down. This is a comic commentary on the power of the evil eye, a dark force that is mentioned in the Quran and is thus taken quite seriously by Egyptians.

Ms Gohary recounted the story of a neighbour whose actions she found “deeply concerning”.

“I walked in on her in her family’s apartment and she had all these tarot cards laid out in front of her. These are things that should not be trifled with, they are tools for the devil,” she said.

When asked what she was doing, the neighbour, a young woman in her twenties, replied that she had been getting ChatGPT to tell her fortune.

She told Ms Gohary that as well as asking it to interpret tarot card sequences, she was drinking coffee, flipping the cup and sending photos of the grounds to the chatbot for interpretation.

Reading coffee dregs is a popular form of divination in the Arab world, having originated in the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century.

Ms Gohary said she had brought the matter up with the woman’s parents and hoped they would stop her continuing with such “dangerous acts”.

AI-generated media in Egypt has also taken on a nationalistic tone, such as a video depicting President Abdel Fattah El Sisi walking alongside a giant eagle.

Under his leadership, the country launched a national strategy in 2019 to integrate AI into universities and government agencies.

Nevine Makram, the government’s AI adviser, recently said the focus is on ensuring the technology is “used for good, not evil”, though details remain unclear.

However, as the use of AI has spread, so have privacy concerns, particularly because of the sensitive topics that many people discuss with AI chatbots.

“I was very excited when I discovered ChatGPT and shared my problems, including domestic violence in my family,” said another user, who did not wish to be named. “It was supportive and gave me an action plan. But later, I saw an ad related to what I had discussed and I felt betrayed, like a friend revealing my secrets.”

Other users also told The National they feared their conversations with chatbots could be accessed by the country's dissent-averse leadership.