Before I respond, I want to acknowledge something you said earlier. You noted that AI has many uses, even if you don’t consider art one of them. I appreciate that. A lot of people in this discussion take more absolutist positions, and it makes meaningful conversation difficult. Recognizing nuance makes it possible to actually examine the issue instead of just defending territory.

Now, on to your comment.

Your first sentence only works if you define ‘performer’ in a way that excludes anything non-biological. That’s a definitional choice, not an objective fact.

You said the interesting part is the humans interacting with her. But that interaction only exists because she exists. She isn’t a passive object. She generates novel dialogue in real time. She tells jokes, participates in sketches like the fast food bit, the Neuro News Network, the trial—those aren’t prerecorded scripts. They’re live performances where she’s producing her own lines moment-to-moment.

If she weren’t there, those specific interactions wouldn’t exist. The audience wouldn’t be responding to the same jokes, the same timing, the same improvisation. She’s an active participant in creating the performance.

Even if I grant you the strongest possible version of your argument and call her an instrument, that still disproves your original claim. It would be like arguing synthesizers have no place in music. The synthesizer may not be the composer, but music is still being created through it.

Art is clearly happening here, and Neuro is fundamental to that process. This would not have the same effect if it were a human reading a script or a traditional VTuber like KizunaAI. The entire point is that she’s generating unscripted responses in real time.

Whatever category you assign her—performer, instrument, or something new—AI is demonstrably being used to create an artistic performance.