Pokimane Reveals Her Biggest Concerns About AI Streamers

Internet livestreamers come in all different shapes and sizes. And recently, a new type of livestreamer, dubbed VTuber, has exploded on YouTube and Twitch (per The Science Survey). Instead of displaying a live video feed of the user's face during streams, VTubers use animated avatars to portray themselves. And their popularity has even led to popular streamers like Twitch megastar Pokimane wanting to get in on the action. But for some, it's still not enough.

Some have taken it a step further and made the avatar and the whole experience computerized. For example, Neuro-sama is a virtual Twitch streamer powered entirely by AI. This AI not only talks to itself but reads chat and responds to comments in a Text-to-speech voice. And it has amassed many fans, with its livestreams pulling in thousands of viewers (via Twitchtracker). However, the AI technology it uses isn't without faults.

Neuro-sama has been caught up in multiple controversies due to saying inappropriate things on stream, eventually resulting in a ban. But livestreamer Pokimane has an entirely different concern regarding AI streamers in general — and her fans feel the same way.

While chatting with her viewers during a recent livestream, Pokimane came to a sudden realization about AI. Pokimane explained, "What if someday we have streamers that evolve from ChatGPT?" For the uninitiated, ChatGPT is an OpenAI language model that is constantly evolving. The AI system talks to users in a conversational way, allowing it to "answer followup questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests," according to its website. Twitch streamers such as Haichubby have already used this AI bot on stream, asking it a myriad of different questions that are often met with hilarious responses.

After explaining the ChatGPT concept to her chat, Pokimane theorized that it could be made into a streamer because of its conversation skills. Pokimane continued by saying that someday, "make a VTuber model and then program it to be an AI streamer." She said they could customize its personality, too, and create a "really sweet and bubbly personality" to draw in more viewers. However, she argued that the technology is not that advanced right now. But Pokimane argued that it would be "very advanced and very scary " someday. And her fans seem to agree, as her comments were full of users theorizing that complete AI streaming could be on the horizon.