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Fortnite Festival's Kizuna Ai Collaboration News Causes Apparent Confusion

Fans of VTuber Kizuna Ai rushed to social media to remind non-fans she is not artificial intelligence, following a January 11 announcement Kizuna Ai will appear in the Fortnite Festival game on January 16. The associated X (formerly Twitter) post includes a community note stating, “Upon seeing the letters ‘AI’, some comments mistakenly assume this character is Artificial Intelligence, hence the addition of background information. KizunaAI is a Japanese virtual being and artist, who debuted in 2016 as a pioneer of virtual YouTubers.”

Japanese aggregate site Hachima Kikō consolidated a handful of X posts from users clearing any confusion of Kizuna Ai not being artificial intelligence. One poster included a screenshot of a different X user saying “Fortnite festival… uses… AI?” with the caption, “omg there is no way that people are this dense. Kizuna Ai not AI, please can we do some googling before we hit post on the tweets LMAOO”.

A second poster states, “Reading the comments here and immediately sighed- Where the [expletive] were you guys back in 2016???” And a third X user mocked Fortnite's player base with a gif of toddlers climbing a staircase with the caption, “The fn community in 2016.”

A cursory examination of the replies and quote reposts of the Kizuna Ai x Fortnite Festival collaboration on X reveals few people are claiming the character is artificial intelligence. While there is a small contingent of X users asking who the VTuber is, many of the responses appear to be preemptively correcting or mocking non-fans of the VTuber for claiming she is artificial intelligence.

Kizuna Ai launched her YouTube channel in 2016. She has since become one of the world's most iconic VYouTubers. Kizuna Ai made the Newsweek Japan's list of "globally respected Japanese people" in 2019.

Sources: Fortnite Festival's X/Twitter account (link 2) via Hachima Kikō