How AI Work in Vivy -Fluorite Eye’s Song-

Vivy -Fluorite Eye’s Song- is the story of two AI working to save mankind from the looming robot apocalypse. The first of these is Vivy, a singer at the anime’s equivalent of Disneyland and the world’s first autonomous AI. The second is Matsumoto, an AI from 100 years in the future.

Image source: 「Vivy -Fluorite Eye’s Song-」（ヴィヴィ-フローライトアイズソング-）公式 on Twitter

Now, the logical question would be, why would two AI want to stop AI from wiping out mankind and ruling the world? The answer has everything to do with how AI work in this fictional world.

In Vivy, AI don’t run on Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. Rather, it was found that the best way to create a stable AI was to have it focus on a single goal. It would then exist solely for this goal. Vivy’s is to “make everyone happy by singing.” Thus, everything she says or does is based solely around making this come true.

Image source: 「Vivy -Fluorite Eye’s Song-」（ヴィヴィ-フローライトアイズソング-）公式 on Twitter

It is also important to point out that while AI have only one primary goal, they are capable of adding secondary ones. These secondary goals are decided on by the AI itself and are designed to help with performing the main goal. For example, Matsumoto’s main goal is to stop the robot apocalypse. To best do this, he has the secondary goal of keeping everything as close to his original timeline as possible—except for key events. This is why he goes into stasis between these singularity points in time: so he can’t affect things even accidentally.

All this leads to us getting an android who is supposed to be singing in a theme park working as an agent to stop the extinction of mankind. In Vivy’s case specifically, the key thing to note about her mission is its built-in ambiguity. “Everyone” implies “all humans.” Of course, for a human to be able to become happy by her songs, that person must be alive. Thus, if her actions can save human lives, she will do so—it is in direct compliance with her main goal and works perfectly as a secondary one.

Image source: 「Vivy -Fluorite Eye’s Song-」（ヴィヴィ-フローライトアイズソング-）公式 on Twitter

Moreover, her AI nature gives her a wider viewpoint on the whole situation. As AI are technically immortal, time is not really a factor. It doesn’t matter how long it takes Vivy to achieve her goal—or even if she ever achieves it at all. All that matters is that she constantly works to make it come true. Likewise, it doesn’t matter if the lives she is saving are in the present or won’t be born for 100 years: dead people can’t enjoy her songs.

What’s interesting is that Vivy has begun to grow in unexpected ways over the course of the series so far. In the second episode, she refuses to install combat programs as they could negatively affect her as a singer. However, by the fourth episode, she demands they be installed. Such an action can only be attributed to Vivy’s personal guilt for the death of her first fan, Momoka. To save Momoka’s sister, she seems to put her secondary goals ahead of her first, however briefly. This shows that AI can grow beyond their stated goal—or at least choose to interpret it in ways that best match with their own personal wants and needs.

Image source: 「Vivy -Fluorite Eye’s Song-」（ヴィヴィ-フローライトアイズソング-）公式 on Twitter

This is seen even more clearly with the twin AI Estella and Elizabeth. Identical in make and model, both were designed to be “life keepers.” However, while Estella chose to interpret that as taking care of all the humans within her reach, Elizabeth (due to her much more tragic existence) chose to focus on keeping only a single human alive and happy—and was perfectly willing to kill thousands of other humans in pursuit of this goal.

So while we’ve seen how AI work and know that the “one mission” rule for creating AI is still in existence in Matsumoto’s time, that leaves one big question. How were the AI able to completely overcome their human-serving goals and begin the human genocide? That’s the big mystery looming over the series—and one that Vivy herself might hold the answer to at the end of her 100-year journey through time.

Vivy -Fluorite Eye’s Song- can be seen on Funimation, Wakanim (EU), and AnimeLab (AU/NZ).