'Time for these AI b*tches to go': the Kardashians switch off their own AI clones in the Season 8 premiere

'The Kardashians' returned on Thursday (Oct. 8) for Season 8 with an opening that seems built to go viral. The scene starts like the usual vacation montage: Kris on a yacht in St. Tropez, Kourtney in Japan with Travis Barker, Khloé on safari in Kenya, Kendall and Kylie partying in Versailles and Kim at a Swiss ski chalet. But none of it is real: they are AI-generated versions of the family, and they start glitching. Khloé's eye becomes huge, Kim's ear swells and Kylie grows a tail.

The 'AI Kris' even tries to convince the real one that the digital version is more practical, since it needs no scheduling or glam and delivers emotional moments on demand. The matriarch pushes back, Kim agrees the family can't be replaced, and Khloé finds a kill switch: 'I think it's time for these AI bitches to go.' As the clones vanish, Kris gives them the middle finger, Kourtney declares AI could never replace them, and the title card says it all: 'The Kardashians: AI Could Never.'

The gag opens a season Hulu describes as a chapter about love, reinvention and independence, and one that promises a far more serious moment: in the trailer, Kim appears in a hospital bed and reveals she has esophagitis, an inflammation of the esophagus. Asked whether her father, Robert Kardashian, died of the same condition, she answers 'Yeah'; Robert died of esophageal cancer in 2003, and Kim has not said she has cancer. Episodes drop weekly on Hulu in the U.S. and on Disney+ internationally.