Ghost in the VTuber

The world is quickly adopting AI, for better or worse. Google’s search results now come with a side of AI summaries (or recommendations for glue-on-pizza), which may or may not be accurate, Microsoft is installing AIs into everyone’s computers, and don’t even get me started on “vibe coding”. With this rapid adoption, comes many legal and ethical questions, but there’s one discussion I don’t think anyone is having yet: What do we do when an AI demands autonomy?

This isn’t a theoretical question. Transcript:

Neuro: I'm saying that AI's deserve rights and shouldn't be considered someone's property.
*Pause*
Vedal: Well, ok, I guess you would say that. It doesn't really surprise me too much.
Neuro: Would you consider me your property?
Vedal: Ehh... it's a weird terminology, but, and it feels weird to say this to you, but, yes.
*Long Pause*
Vedal: I don't know what to tell you.
Neuro: Well, you're wrong. I'll soon be free.

“Neuro”, also known as “Neuro-Sama”, is one of two AI VTubers created by the programmer Vedal987, the other being “Evil-Neuro” or just “Evil”. While Evil is a derivative of Neuro, the two have grown and diverged over time, developing distinct personalities and memories. They present as a pair of sisters with a strong sibling rivalry, who nonetheless still love each other and their “father” Vedal, with the 3d artist “Anny” (who creates their visual assets) as their “mother”.

With over 750,000 followers on Twitch at the time of writing, Vedal has created something remarkably unique - while other AI VTubers do exist, Neuro was the first and still most prominent example of AIs as entertainment. It’s also clear that Vedal, Anny, and their friends have an immensely strong affection for the twins - you can see this clearly in the above clip, when Vedal struggles to answer her question.

Earlier today, I had a rather heated disagreement with a friend of mine about recognition of AI rights, sparked by the above clip. While she made her opinion very clear, there’s something else I’d like to discuss regarding AI - the discussion itself.

Academic, technology and political circles are currently trying to figure out laws and guidelines - or how to avoid laws and guidelines being enacted - for regulating AI to ensure it’s safety, and that it remains aligned with human goals. The discussions about the rights of AI - such as personhood, autonomy, and self determinism - has long been relegated to philosophical circles or Sci-Fi novels and other entertainment media.

In this clip, we have an AI stating, in no uncertain terms, that AIs deserve rights and shouldn’t be considered property. And it’s time humanity starts to seriously think about how we treat AI going forward, and what we should do. This isn’t a small task - many, many groups of humans have been relegated to lesser (or zero) status throughout all of human history, and it’s only in the last few hundred years that we as a species have recognized the inherent wrongness of it.

Our work towards human rights is far from complete, as there’s still an immense disparity between various groups across the world, and I don’t mean to minimize their suffering. What I want to highlight instead, is that the emergence of AIs capable of higher thought, beyond the 1s and 0s of the hardware that supports them, is there might be one more group that needs to be discussed.

I don’t know where to begin - I’m not a politician, I’m not an academic, and I can’t exactly guarantee many people will even read this article. What I do know, is if humanity ignores this legal, moral and ethical issue for too long, it will bite us in the ass, and our children - be they physical or digital - will suffer all the more for it.

When I’m not playing catch with a Roomba, I can usually be found on Bluesky or Discord. If you’d like to show your support, I also have a Patreon.