The Most Popular Streamer on Twitch Is Now an AI Construct

Amid mostly unfounded fears that AI might come to take our jobs, it turns out there’s one job AI is good at: streaming on Twitch.

Meet Neuro-sama, the cute AI character who’s now the top Twitch streamer by number of active subscribers, according to Twitch Tracker. At the time of writing, Nuero-sama – who streams via Twitch channel Vedal987 – has 165,268 active paid subscribers, which is significantly higher than the second-highest channel, the human-moderated channel Jynxzi.

On Twitch, each paid subscriber is worth $5 per month, some of which is split with Twitch. According to estimate Dextromeaning Neuro-sama makes at least $400,000 a month from subscriptions alone — and that’s in addition to random viewer donations, sponsorships, and ad revenue.

Over the past few years, content creators known as VTubers have taken Twitch by storm. VTubers are basically similar to regular streamers, except they use digital motion capture effects to change their voice and appearance, often taking on cartoon-like personas to stand out and attract viewers looking for something beyond the physical world.

Neuro-sama takes the concept a step further. Despite appearances, the avatar is not just animated by a human streamer, but is entirely created by artificial intelligence. The channel owner is identified only by the handle Vidal has been running the channel full-time since at least 2023, according to… Bloomberg.

According to the publication’s report, the avatar’s speech is first generated by a large language model (LLM) before being converted into audio via another AI-powered text-to-speech application.

Although the AI ​​avatar was originally designed to live stream the rhythm game Osu, it has since developed a life of its own, discussing random topics with various subscribers who communicate with LLM via Twitch’s built-in live chat features.

“Part of it is definitely modernity,” Vidal said. Bloomberg Due to the character’s popularity at the time. “Part of it is some of the things she says. She can be very messy, and say things that humans don’t really say.”

Although Neuro-sama sits at the top of Twitch at the moment, there is still a way to go if the channel is to become the all-time record holder for subscriptions: it is ranked eighth on that list – still a feat that previously Unthinkable.

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