A 54-Year-Old’s Absurd AI Experiment – A Personal AI Project to Automate Thoughtfulness

This fun personal AI experiment will use voice cloning, generative video, and the n8n automation tool to deliver thoughtful surprises from 2,000 miles away.

Intro

Yes, I already text and FaceTime my partner every day so please let it be known that this isn’t about filling a gap or replacing conversation with robots — it’s mainly about curiosity, learning and hopefully a fun outcome. I’m 54, mildly stubborn, and for reasons I can’t fully justify, I’m going to try and build an AI system that automatically sends her short and personalised videos. Not because we needed it, but because I wanted to see if I could piece together voice cloning, basic video generation, and automation into something that actually feels like me.

TL;DR: I’m building a fully automated AI system that sends my partner daily personalised videos because small, consistent gestures matter (and because I like to keep busy and learn new skills in the name of fun)

Yes, I know, there are easier ways to be sweet and thoughtful. I just didn’t pick them. This is going to be part experiment, part romance, and part “can I make n8n workflows that work and don't fall apart the minute I stop watching them?” If it works, she will get small, unexpected clips through out the day that sound like me, look like me, and hopefully make her laugh. If it fails… well, she still gets a story to tell her friends how crazy I am (and give them something to lecture her about).

Why I’m Doing This

I moved to an Indonesian village for most of the year after stepping away from a long-term role in the Northern Territory Government for medical reasons. It’s quiet here, few distractions, and fewer bills. The catch is obvious and that is that my partner is in Australia, building her career (smashing it actually), and I’m over here building whatever this is. We’re fine and we talk every day, but I wanted to make something that runs in the background, something small, surprising, and a little fun. And I wanted a project that would force me to learn properly, not just watch tutorials and forget everything by lunchtime.

Why AI Videos When Calls Are Free

Because this isn’t replacing the calls. It’s adding something cool, romantic and funny. The videos are short, human, and occasionally ridiculous—little moments dropped into her day with lines I actually say and scenes that don’t feel like corporate templates. It’s also a shameless excuse to mess around with tools I’ve been eyeing for months like voice cloning, basic video generation, and automations that don’t break when you look at them too hard.

The Shift Away From “Money Ideas”

I went down the usual rabbit hole of trying to make an income online for a while. But everything I looked at seemed too hypey, too scammy and just wasn't for me. So I stopped trying to force it and instead, start to build things that are interesting and I care about, even if nobody pays me to do them. If someone hires me later to automate their weird project or I land the occasional gig on Upwork or Fivver, great. If not, I still learned and she still gets a smile out of it. That’s a fair trade I think.

What I’m Actually Making

It starts with a script generator that will hopefully pull from things I actually say — “Rightio,” “I suppose,” and the occasional nonsense that somehow made her laugh in 2022 and then mixes in a bit of context from our recent chats. My cloned voice reads it out. A quick AI video tool pastes my face on screen, more or less behaving itself.

Then I play the human filter as sometimes the AI decides I have ten fingers, a wandering eyebrow, or a head that could float away like a party balloon. If it passes the “would she recognise me without screaming?” test, it’s then queued for delivery. The next day it gets sent into her messages (probably Telegram) at times that fit her schedule. I'm hoping it will be short, simple with no Oscar speeches but just five second nudges that say, “I’m here. Also, I built this because I’m a menace.”

Is It Romantic or Creepy?

Depends on the observer I suppose. Some people will call it sweet and some will call it the automation of intimacy. I just call it “me using technology I enjoy to do something that hopefully she enjoys.” We still talk like normal people. These are small extras like dropping a note in a lunchbox, if lunchboxes required AI tokens and an internet connection.

What I Hope to Learn (Besides Patience)

On the technical side, I want to understand voice cloning well enough to trust it, get better at character consistency in short videos, and improve at building flows in n8n without wanting to throw my laptop into a wall. I will also, hopefully, get better at reading code, just enough to know it won’t set my server on fire. On the human side, I’m testing a theory and that is that small, consistent gestures beat grand gestures over time especially when life is full and distances are real.

Why This Reads Like a Story, Not a Spec Sheet

Because that's the way I wanted it to read and I'm not that smart plus real life doesn’t always happen in bullet points. I could bullet the “pipeline” to death but that’s not what this is for. This is just me building something slightly unnecessary because it makes both of us smile, and because learning is easier when the outcome matters to someone you care about.

What’s Next

I’ll share full builds of this over the next (who knows how many) posts which should include the infrastructure, the cheap providers that actually work, the apps I used and why, and the stuff I’ll replace later. If you’re into building practical, slightly unhinged things without pretending to be a start-up founder, you may like it here.

And if you think this is too much effort when I could just send a message, I do that too. This is just… extra. On purpose.

PS
If you want a bit more of a personal background, I wrote more about the why and the life change on my About page. If you want to steal any of this for your own setup, then follow along as I will be providing some detail in future posts like the workflows and tool updates.

**Update:** Read about my progress with the scripting in Welcome Back to This Crazy Project