Vivy -Fluorite Eye's Song- The Rights and Prejudices of AIs

 This is a script for the video found here. A Japanese script is also available.

One of the unique aspects of Vivy’s story is that she’s an AI championing a lack of AI rights, which makes this anime stand out immensely from other AI stories. While AI getting more rights over the course of the series is thus a plot point, it’s still interesting to see what rights they already have and how they’re prejudiced against, though they are all done in subtle ways.

The first few episodes are innocent enough, and we even see a AI doctor who treats Vivy kindly at NiaLand. There are even customs to make AI feel more involved. We see two cups for Vivy and the scientist in Episode 3 and later when talking to Saeki, Grace gives him a cup of tea and Vivy and Matsumoto two empty cups. It was confirmed in a tweet by Tappei Nagatsuki that this was a way of showing respect to them, even though they don’t need to eat or drink anything. You could say that Momoka pressing her head against Vivy’s in the first episode was a way of respecting her by sharing her feelings in the AIs’ way as well.

Things change with the end of Episode 4 though, when we learn about Elizabeth. The scientists who built her would know that she has emotions like humans, but they still throw her away just because their experiment failed. She is left without arms and with only half of her face as a result, as well as a lot of pain and suffering. So even scientists who work closely with AI still think of them as objects! They also left her unable to complete her mission, or even a mission at all. Vivy is horrified to learn that Grace’s mission was changed, because to an AI a mission is like their soul, which is why Elizabeth is so grateful to Kakitani to have been given one after he found her.

Vivy thinks this a terrible treatment of AIs, and things continue to be terrible when Toak attacks the Metal Float. Matsumoto’s first reaction is to shut the AIs down so that no one will know that they fought humans and Vivy agrees immediately, even though Toak instigated the conflict. When saving Toak in Episode 6 as well, Matsumoto is concerned about their injuries becoming public, and this causes protests against AIs for the next 40 years. It feels like a way to say that even though humans act like they want to be equals with AI, they will always side with other humans, even if they’re terrorists.

It’s also sad that Vivy herself feels this way too despite everything else. She feels sorry for Estella and Elizabeth’s deaths, and feels terrible about killing Grace, but she’s willing to kill her for the sake of her mission. One of the tag lines for the anime is even about how she’s going to kill her own kind for the sake of the future, not to mention what she says to Saeki after killing K-5! She doesn’t even hesitate to shut down M and the other AIs on the “Metal Float” either. But as soon as Saeki dies she breaks and loses her memory for 40 years. It’s painful that even Vivy herself values humans so much compared to her own species. Diva seems to be more emotionally stable when Kakitani dies, but that could be because he’s already an AI as well.

Even after Vivy returns, she still values humans more. She doesn’t break after seeing humans die any more, but she’s still quick to kill other AIs after being unable to connect to the blonde AI, though she still feels sorry for them. Even Matsumoto finds it difficult to believe that Ophelia would value Antonio on the same level of humans in Episode 8, on top of refusing to believe that AIs can feel love or other such emotions, or even that he himself could be affectionate towards anyone! Vivy suffers from this objectification too: when she retires, instead of being allowed to live in peace she's turned into a a museum piece. She's alive, but it's like she's in a prison!

On the topic of Ophelia, I find it sad that Saeki and Grace getting married is seen as something to celebrate, but Ophelia and Antonio being in love seems impossible. Did everyone assume Grace only thought she was in love? It seems really unfair! And that’s not even getting into how creepy AI funerals are. If you don’t understand, imagine attending one for one of the AIs we’ve grown to love, like Vivy. It’s horrifying, isn’t it?

Thank you very much for your kind attention!