Ta Dah! Just A Quick Sketch But I’m Happy With It

I always feel so bad for wilf cause you can just see him slowly lose his grip throughout wkm and it’s really sad

He’s always been one of my favorites, and seeing him slowly lose it is just so heartbreaking. But I’ve gotta give Mark props for his acting in WKM, it was phenomenal.

"Dark Side" Headcanons.

-They're thought forms (See previous story about Hyde Glitches), so the bigger the following in the fanbase, the stronger they are. And they're (almost) all aware of each other.

-The Youtubers, or their Personas, anyway, are generally unaware of their dark sides. The exceptions are Mark and Jack (bc their counterparts have appeared intentionally in videos).

-For the longest time, Dark was the strongest of them. And then Mark turned him into a joke. He lost power quickly.

-No one was expecting Anti's rise. Not even Jack, who had his concerns but didn't panic until shortly before Halloween.

-When Anti rose, Dark was bitter and jealous. Anti's a snarky, arrogant shit, so he fed this bitterness. Now Dark's biggest wish is to kill Anti.

-Problem being, this would kill Jack as well, with how strong Anti is. Because Jack is Sean's online existence, and Anti is now canonically part of this existence.

-Mad!Cry, Pewdiepie.EXE, MadPat, Natemare, etc. are all weak, and were henchmen to Dark because they were afraid of him and greedy for a cut of his popularity and power. When Anti rose, they offered their surfaces to him, but he's not much of a leader, just a destructive force. Now they just cause minor havoc whenever they can.

And also...

-Corroded Crank just came into existence. And he's not evil, he's just broken. He's also Dark's prisoner. He's only dangerous when his programming malfunctions, then he's deadly strong.

If you want stories based on these ideas, my asks are always open and I’m happy to write suggestions!

Can we talk about what this really means, though?

It means that Wil has been floating through time and space, not actively attempting to murder people but it just happens, and he literally cannot tell. His personal timeline is so confused, that he can’t feel the finality of it. Nothing really dies for him, so he literally cannot comprehend death anymore. People he’s shot come back and talk to him like friends, people he doesn’t remember hate him, and he can’t seem to die. None of that makes any sense.

He can hear what people are thinking, and I imagine he can’t turn that off. Do you know how terrifying that must have been at the very beginning? Hearing billions of voices and thoughts and not knowing what was what? Drowning it out with alcohol and loud music and bombasticness was all that he could do. And he’s perfectly aware that he’s losing things, his memory, his identity, everything he’s ever known. He’s not insane, he’s apathetic. He has nothing to lose because he’s constantly losing everything he’s ever had anyway, and yet he’s still trying desperately to care.

Also, can we talk about the line “nothing heals like a good apology”? All Mark (as in Asshole Mark from WKM) needed was a sincere apology, and to look at the bigger picture. Because he didn’t get that, because Wil himself didn’t apologize to his best friend for hurting him so deeply, because he blamed him and hated him for years and years, Wil lost everything, and he destroyed everything he had ever loved. So of course, to Wil, an apology is the most important thing he can give someone.

Wil is far, far more sane than any of us gave him credit for, and that hurts so much to know.

Man, one quick disco party video and suddenly I’m sad. Well fucking done, Mark and team. Well done.

(Also can I say I was losing my shit when the WKM music started playing. I love it so much.)

ALRIGHT WHILE I WOULD LOVE TO LIVE THEORIZE WITH THE REST OF THE COMMUNITY UNFORTUNATELY I HAVE SHIT TO DO TODAY SO EXPECT A HUUUUUGE THEORY POST LATER TODAY.

ALL I’M GONNA SAY FOR NOW IS FUCK YEAH MURDER MYSTERY TIME

I’ve written another book! The Clockwork Figurine is a collection of short stories (some of which are based on fanfics that I first published here!), and it’s available worldwide on Amazon for $.99 as an ebook. It’s also available in paperback!

Visitor. (A WKM Drabble)

 A/N: So someone came up with the idea of Will and Celine having a kid, and my heart got really sad. So have some word vomit. (Credit to @turquoisemagpie for the neato drawing that gave Winnie her look and gave me the idea.)

Dark was mid-meeting when he felt it.

Someone was in the house. After all this time...he was here now, it'd been so long since he'd been back...but the feeling was familiar. He frowned, standing suddenly, earning a curious look from Google, who’d been trying to explain analytics to his uninterested audience. "Where's Wilford?" "He's in his studio, as always," Google replied, narrowing his eyes, "Why the sudden interest? We were discussing the primary-" "Excuse me." Dark moved quickly out of the room, slamming the door behind him. His aura was agitated, greying out the walls of the hallway, making Bim duck into a doorway to avoid it (it was unpleasant to pass through, to say the least) as he strode toward Wil's sound stage. He didn't bother to knock as he shoved the door open roughly. "Warfstache!" Wilford sighed heavily from his position in front of the green screen. "Dammit, man, can't you learn to knock? Jesus." He rolled his eyes and waved his gun at Jim, behind the camera, who quickly cut the take and scurried out of the room. Everyone in Ego Inc. knew what Dark slamming into a room would lead to. "Have you been back to the house?" "Are you out of your mind? Why would I go to Mark's house at this hour? I've been here, recording my new show all day. It's a real winner this time, Dark-" "You know damn well I don't mean Mark's house, idiot, have you been back to that house?" "What are you talking about?" Dark scowled at Wilford for a long moment. The fool couldn't remember, of course he couldn't. But that meant it hadn't been him. Of course it wasn't him, mumbled an annoyed voice in the back of his mind, how would he have gotten there and back so quickly? Besides, I still feel it so it can't be him. This bothered Dark even further. He hadn't heard that voice in years. Shut up. Dark turned on his heel and walked out, much to Wilford's confusion. He walked quickly, until he found an empty hall, and reached for one of the doors, concentrating. When he opened it, he found himself on the second floor landing. He stared at the railing for half a second, before huffing and walking down the stairs, looking around him for the intruder.

He found her in the foyer, looking...looking in the mirror.

The shattered reflection showed a pair of large, round lenses in bent black frames over two wide brown eyes, the arms curled under bobbed black hair. Her face was angular, but not particularly sharp, and she was smiling curiously. A small slip of a thing, really, her red collared shirt and high waisted black slacks clearly a few sizes too big for her, and the fact that she was lugging a massive leather carrier bag with the strap slung across her body didn't help with the delicate image. Definitely not your typical looter. She looked so much like him, the same silly smile and bearing, hands clasped behind her back as she inspected the antique before her, that Dark stumbled back a step as the old voice in his head yelled out in surprise. The noise alerted her to his presence and she whipped around, slapping a hand to the cover flap of the bag as if to grab something from it. "Oh my-! Oh, jesus, I-I'm sorry, I didn't know anyone still...but I mean the-the woman in the library said no one had lived here for...no, but that's no excuse, I'm sorry, I-I'll just go-" "Shut up," Dark said calmly, having collected himself a bit, but still reeling from the shock. She nearly bit her lip to stop herself, looking down at the ground and clasping her hands behind her back again. God, the resemblance...how...? "Who are you, and what are you doing here?" "I-I'm Winnie Ford, sir, a-and I'm researching for a school project, about abandoned buildings-" "Don't lie to me." The stairs below him went grey, and Winnie's face paled, but he was too distracted to notice. Ford? Her name was Ford? "Why are you here?" He repeated, more quietly. The air seemed to buzz between them. "I...I..." She seemed to be looking for an escape, but sighed as she found none, standing up a little straighter, as if to accept her fate. The confidence is impressive. No. Stop that. "I'm looking for information about my parents." She said it with false calm, the illusion of which was shattered as she retreated a few steps into the room as Dark descended the stairs and approached her. She bumped into the wall behind her, still trying to appear casual. "And why would you come here for that?" "Because this was the last place they were seen alive." He froze. Something must have registered in his face, becaues the girl frowned at him. "You...you live here, don't you? Do you...do you know what happened?" "What happened in 2017. The poker party." "Yes," she said, nodding slowly, taking a step closer. He flinched and she reflexively stepped back. "Yes, so you do know about that." He couldn't seem to move. "Your parents were...there, that night?" "So the newspapers say. So the orphanage said." "My god..." The voice coming out of his mouth was one he hadn't used in a very long time. He hadn't known he could use it anymore, hadn't known that the feelings now exploding in his chest, could still exist within this corpse of his. "Did...did you know them?" "I...no." He glanced over at the mirror, then back up at the stairs, then looked back at her, barely able to hold himself together. Being here, seeing her, it was too much, he wasn't going to be able to sustain himself, he should leave, shut down these feelings, eliminate the cause of them...no, that thought made a spike of pain shoot through his chest, and he gripped the table suddenly. Winnie took a few steps toward him, moving as if to put her hand on his arm. "Are you-?" "Don't," he said harshly, and she stopped, still looking concerned. She was stood right on the edge of his aura, couldn't she see it? If she touched it...but why did he care? "Don't...don't touch me. Don't come any closer. Please." The word sounded awkward, unfamiliar on this tongue. "Okay...Alright, I won't." Her tone was one you would use with a wounded animal. She's not afraid of me. Yes, she is. Shut up. "What do you know?" She leaned against the wall again, still trying to look casual. Why was he relieved when she stepped away? "Well...I know my mother's name was Celine Noir. But I don't know who my father was. That's the only name the orphanage had on file, and," she quirked a small smile, "that was hard enough to find. I was some kind of cover up, apparently." His eyes were blown wide, he could see them in the mirror, he could feel it. One hand twitched toward her, and he could see himself touching her face, cradling it, hugging her tightly and not having to lose them all over again. He could see himself taking her back with him away from this house, he could see Wil seeing her, coming back to him, he could see himself and this young girl and his best friend, a family once more, remembering, moving on, forgetting this place, forgetting what...what he'd... What he was. It came rushing back to him, but...but for this brief moment, he was still himself. He was here, and he was looking at her, and she looked so much like her mother, stood like her father, and god he missed them so much. Suddenly, he was talking, before he could stop himself. Stupid, stupid boy, what are you doing? "Your father's name was William Ford. You're a bastard, that's why she gave you up. She hated herself for it, wanted desperately to keep you, but..." But Mark, when he found out he wasn't the father, went berserk, nearly killed Will right then and there, if he hadn't stopped him... He took an unnecessary, deep breath. She was staring at him, the bluntness of his answer apparently surprising her. "William Ford...that's where the last name comes from, I guess. I wondered about that, why it wasn't Fischbach..." "No...no, she'd never let you take his name." Why were his eyes stinging? They shouldn't be able to do that anymore. "What...happened to him? To both of them?" Her voice was very quiet, but god she sounded just like Celine. "Who are you?" "I'm...not important." He took a few steps back. He couldn't be here anymore. "You should go. Get away from here." Get away from me. "But-" "Get. Out." He spoke quietly but the glass divider nearby cracked loudly. It didn't seem to phase the girl. "You haven't told me who you-" "You don't need to know that." She frowned, giving him a determined look. "Yes. I do. I want to know what the hell is going on. I want to know who I am. I want to know who you are." She put her hand on the table, it was too close to his, the grey was touching her fingertips. "At least tell me your name." He stared at the hand, trying desperately to pull his aura back into himself, but it wasn't easy to control when his emotions flared up, and it hadn't happened in so long he had nearly forgotten how. His eyes slowly moved to meet hers properly for the first time, and... He was face to face with a teenage boy with a goofy grin and a gun license and a draft haircut, asking this stupid kid with a sweater vest and too many political science books on the table in front of him in the lunchroom why he was sat on his own. He was looking at his sister as she asked him for help, tears in her eyes, she was begging him not to let Mark find out, one hand on her stomach, where a bulge would soon grow. He was looking at this girl, maybe twenty years old, who'd grown up in an orphanage, never knowing anything but her own name and her mother’s, and never even knowing her father’s name, who had his confidence and her smile and god, she even looked a bit like him, and his mouth was opening without his consent. "Damien." She smiled, a little confused. "Damien." Why did that name sound so natural in her voice? "Well, it's...it's nice to meet you." She offered him her hand again. Why was his hand moving toward hers? He stopped it, pulling it back sharply as he retreated. "You should go." "But..." "Winnie...I...you need to leave this place, it's..." Not safe. He was here. "It's not where you need to be. You need to go. I've told you all I can." His voice dropped in volume, but not the same way it usually does. This time, there was only one layer, and he sounded so much like...himself. "Please go." He wasn't sure what she heard in his voice, but it seemed to convince her. Maybe she was finally noticing his aura, maybe she was too afraid to stay with him any longer. She stepped toward the door. Pulled the handle. Took a step. Looked back over her shoulder. "It really was good to meet you, Damien." She had more questions than answers, he knew. She'd probably be back to this place. Her little frown, and the look in her eyes...he remembered seeing that look on another young girl's face. "You know, there's something terribly familiar about you." He didn't answer. Instead, he turned back to the stairs, and climbed back up them, and it was as if he were stepping back in time. He heard the door slam behind him, and paused. He was alone again. "It was nice to meet you, Winnie." But there was no one to hear the darkness return to his voice. No one to witness as he left this place, empty again.

should anyone be interested, and because these are actually writing/artsy related. go for it! i’ll answer to the best of my ability. :)

identity ask.........oh shit

if someone wanted to really understand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to?

have you ever found a writer who thinks just like you? if so, who?

list your fandoms and one character from each that you identify with.

do you like your name?  is there another name you think would fit you better?

do you think of yourself as a human being or a human doing? do you identify yourself by the things you do?

are you religious/spiritual?

do you care about your ethnicity?

what musical artists have you most felt connected to over your lifetime?

are you an artist?

do you have a creed?

describe your ideal day.

dog person or cat person?

inside or outdoors?

are you a musician?

five most influential books over your lifetime.

if you’d grown up in a different environment, do you think you’d have turned out the same?

would you say your tumblr is a fair representation of the “real you”?

what’s your patronus?

which Harry Potter house would you be in? or are you a muggle?

would you rather be in Middle Earth, Narnia, Hogwarts, or somewhere else?

do you love easily?

list the top five things you spend the most time doing, in order.

how often would you want to see your family every year?

have you ever felt like you had a “mind-meld” with someone?

could you live as a hermit?

how would you describe your gender/sexuality?

do you feel like your outside appearance is a fair representation of the “real you”?

on a scale from 1 to 10, how hard is it for someone to get under your skin?

three songs that you connect with right now.

pick one of your favorite quotes.

I’m a fan of both, and I kinda see them as an evolution? Like Anti started out wild and glitchy, but he’s slowly learning to control his...form, I guess? better than he did before, so he can be silent and menacing. He’s done playing games and is getting down to business, whatever his main business is now.

Okay question for everyone,

Do you all like the silent, menacing, Anti more or the crazy, chaotic glitch?

For me personally, I like the silent version more. Why? It's way more terrifying. With the other one, you know exactly what he's thinking and what he's going to do next but with the left one, he's way more unpredictable, way more sinister. He could easily kill you without you even knowing.

I saw @wkm-theories pairing this up with my theory (Thank you for all the compliments by the way, how sweet!), and I thought I’d show it to you guys. What do you think? Does it add credit? DOes it flesh out some details I missed?

2 hours remain...

DEMONS!!!

Well these just keep getting better and better! Sorry for getting my theory out so late today, Thursdays are my insane days at university, I only just got a chance to sit down and watch chapter 3. And what a chapter! Without further ado, I’ll jump right in. 

Right away, it is very obvious that Celine has a long history with both Damien and the Colonel. The Colonel acts more vulnerable with her than any other person we’ve seen so far. He even says that he “trusts Celine with all his heart,” and he stutters after saying that. He is ALWAYS confident, but it is clear that Celine is capable of knocking him off guard. 

Also, the use of the line “I trust Celine with all my heart.” is interesting. That’s not something you say about a close friend. That’s not even something you say about a family member. That is something you say about someone you have deep feelings for, romantic feelings. Remember this picture?

Mark and Celine are being very friendly in it. Damien and the Colonel, not so much. While Damien seems mostly just worried, the Colonel’s body language and stance make him appear very angry. We know he and Mark had a major falling out, Damien even went so far as to say that the Colonel hated him. Nothing like a little love triangle to break up a friendship.

And then there’s the Mayor. Celine calls him Damien, which we’ve only seen the Colonel do before. Everyone else in the story calls him Mr. Mayor, or just the Mayor. The nature of their conversations also suggests a long history. I think its safe to say that she’s known Mark for as long as Damien and the Colonel have, and that they have all known each other since they were young. She also states that she’s “never been very comfortable in this house,” implying in the same way the Colonel did in yesterday’s episode that she’s familiar with it

It is also interesting that Damien seems surprised at her knowledge of the occult and arcane arts, thinking she’s not the type to “get mixed up in all this.” That language implies that he also doesn’t put much stock in the unseen. This is further supported by Celine’s insistence that there’s more to the world than he knows. 

He also seems to want to protect her; asking if she’s alright, telling her to be careful, wanting to stay with her to protect her. It’s worth noting that Celine bites back against his desire to stay inside with her. “I don’t need help, especially from you!” This is just speculation, but if he tried to intervene and fix things back when Mark and the Colonel were fighting, but only ended up making things worse, her reluctance to accept his help would make a lot of sense. One thing’s for sure, these four friends’ seemingly tight bonds have gone under a lot of strain. 

As for Celine herself, she’s her own little ball of mystery. First off, why did she come to the manor today? The Butler, while he appears to know her, says that she’s come “at a most inconvenient time.” Meaning that he wasn’t expecting her, which seems unusual for him. She is clearly sensitive to the occult, and I don’t mean just because she’s been trained. Based on her conversation with Damien, we can gather that the arcane arts are a new thing in her life, but she remarks that she’s “Never felt very comfortable in this house.” So she has always been sensitive to the other side. And there has always been something off about that house. This is further evidenced by the Groundskeeper George and his reluctance to set foot in “that mad house.” 

As a side note, “Celine” is a latin name that means “heaven.” “Selene” is a name that means “brightness,” and is a greek deity of the moon. So Teamiplier has taken care in connecting her to the powers beyond. 

Speaking of the powers beyond, her seance was bizarre. While you were apparently there to “commune with the dead,” you see only events from the past, all surrounding the Colonel, and then one event from the future. It is this future event makes you pull out, presumably because you did not recognize it. When Celine sees your drawing, she says that “this answers nothing.” If she grew up around the house, or at least is familiar with it, then she likely recognized that it was George, and as she is already aware of him and does not suspect him, this is why she insists that you “go back” into the seance. But, before we can, we are interrupted. Despite everyone’s protests, Celine insists that she is not done. 

Our talk with George is short, but enlightening. He seems a harmless enough fellow, and he and the Chef apparently have a good friendship, but it’s his comments about the house that have my attention, as they no doubt have everyone’s. 

The first thing that caught my eye is that he says “murdered” and there’s…no lightning. There’s been more lightning than usual this episode as Celine tries to get them to stop saying the word “murder.” But George says it, without concern or consequence. In fact, he says everything without concern. He seems to worry about nothing but keeping the grounds. Until the Detective says that they’re going inside; then George’s entire demeanor changes. He becomes serious, and speaks to the Detective like he’s capable of putting him in his place, but just couldn’t be bothered to before. He says it’s been 15 years since going into the house, and he’s not going to go in now. 

What strikes me about this is that he is the only one who hasn’t been in the house, and he’s also the only one who can speak freely without lightning accenting his sentences. That makes me think that whatever is causing the lightning is INSIDE THE HOUSE. And whatever it is, George is at least somewhat aware of it. He would only go back into that house for one reason….

Which of course immediately occurs. There is DEFINITELY something wrong with that house. And it’s been growing steadily stronger this whole time. Which brings me to my final major conclusion about today. 

Celine has become possessed by whatever force is present in the house. The same force that will eventually become Darkiplier. A force I happen to think is, based on the Jim News segment of today, some sort of demon. While I find those segments hilarious, there is some substance to them. Tiny clues that point to whatever’s going on in this manor. Speaking of what’s going on in the manor, I think this is what happened. 

Celine has always been connected to the spiritual world, but recently underwent training to better understand and interact with it. While training is good, she seems to be a novice, based on Damien’s surprise at her involvement in such practices. And a novice would be no match for the force that is at work here. When she opens a channel to the spirit world in the seance, she is leaving herself vulnerable to the demon’s possession. Some evidence for this: 

Celine has been acting decently normal until this moment, when she says “Now that my eyes are opened, something tells me that there are dark forces surrounding this manor.” She then begins the seance:

She doesn’t open herself up to the dark forces in this manor until this moment, when she begins to channel the spirit world to help you see the past, and then the future. Her eyes remain closed, and she still seems intent on helping find out the truth. Until here:

Just before you go into your vision, she opens her eyes and looks up at you. “Keep your enemies close…” she says, in a deep voice. Her face is twisted into a creepy grin, that we see again in the ending scene. The demon has entered her, and it is at this moment that things begin to go wrong. Before the seance, she was calm. Afterwards, she is much more volatile. Yelling at you, her friends…I don’t think she realizes that she’s been possessed yet, but it’s hard to ignore that kind of negative influence on you (like how wearing a horcrux brings out the worst aspects of your personality). 

But if the demon that is behind all of this is in fact Darkiplier, what about our previous theories about the Mayor? It’s hard to ignore the similarities. Well, this is my theory: Damien does not resemble Darkiplier. Darkiplier resembles Damien. Now, this is getting slightly into head cannon territory, but bear with me. I’ve tried to base my ideas about how Darkiplier works off of what we’e canonically seen as much as possible. I’ll briefly summarize here, but if you want a more in depth explanation of how I think Dark works, you can read it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11149080/chapters/24875811 (It’s only 3 short chapters, it’s about Markiplier TV mostly).

Basically, I don’t think Darkiplier is directly connected to Markiplier. I think that Dark is a force that can take many forms, and that it choses Markiplier to imitate because of the influence Mark has over his community. While Mark uses this power for good, an evil force could use it in horrible ways. This is based on what Mark said in his Feb 2017 charity stream about Dark existing in another world, bleeding into this one, and admiring what Mark has accomplished. To me, that says that he wants that kind of recognition, but doesn’t have it in his natural state. Anyway, back to Who Killed Markiplier: I think that the entity of Dark was residing in this house, and then it possesses Celine here in this scene. As I’ve said and as we’ve seen, Damien cares very deeply for Celine. I don’t know if it’s a romantic feeling or just a deep friendship, but as others have pointed out, when she arrives, your safety takes a backseat. He still cares about you, but she is now the most important person in the room. 

I think that Damien offered himself to the Dark entity in Celine’s place. Damien is a powerful man; he is a leader and he is in a position of authority. That would appeal to this creature more than Celine would, so it takes that offer, leaving Celine’s body and possessing Damien instead. The reason that Darkiplier and Damien share so many mannerisms is that old aspects of Damien’s personality are still visible in the Darkiplier persona. Darkiplier then lurked around Markiplier’s channel, still seeing the entertainment industry as the best way to reach mass amounts of people. My previous conflict with the timeline not matching the real world origin of Darkiplier could easily be explained away by whatever dimension Dark is from existing on a different time scale, or outside of time altogether. This very well could be the origin of Darkiplier: A demon that possessed an innocent man who only wanted to protect his friends.

Whew! That was easily the longest I’ve spent on one of these (almost 2 hours). Thank you for reading, and as always, let me know what you think! I’m aware I didn’t cover my #Markiplier Lives angle in this post, I’m going to address this episode’s evidence for that in another one. This one has gone on long enough. Until the next theory!

On Today’s Unus Annus Video!

So today Unus Annus tackled the idea of artificial intelligence, and I got really excited and wrote a text wall comment that’s undoubtably going to get buried there, so I thought I’d post it here for anyone who’s interested! Posting it under a cut because HOOO BOY it’s a long one.

tl;dr AI is super cool and scary and much closer to being a thing than we think it is. Signed, a nerd who did way too much research for her scifi book.

Hi! I actually did a TON of research into the mechanics and ethics of AI when I was writing my first novel in 2018.  Be prepped for a text wall dump of cool AI info!

So you're actually hitting on one of the biggest conundrums of artificial intelligence technology, which is, to quote the wiki, "If an AI system replicates all key aspects of human intelligence, will that system be sentient"? At that point, there is significant debate over who would own the rights to the system, or whether there would be a way to determine that at all. This point in history, where it becomes impossible to distinguish between an AI and a human being (AKA, the first machine to pass the Turing test) and in fact, the AI surpasses human intelligence, is referred to as the singularity (Originally coined by Scifi writer Vernor Vinge). The majority of the debate comes from what to do in the event of the singularity, which is taken by many to be a when not an if. Do we trust that the machines we make will trust us? Or do we stop them before they get that far because they might consider us a threat to their existence and wipe us out instead?

Lots of Scifi writers have tackled this idea in their works (including me!), but one of the most famous solutions is the one proposed by Isaac Asimov in his short story "Runaround", which was published in 1942 (this story later became part of I, Robot, which is where you've probably heard the rules before). Asimov instituted in his fictional robot-filled society three basic rules:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

Asimov's laws have been a huge part of the discussion around real scientific research into the capabilities of programming and machine learning because people see them as a way to safeguard advances that we make. But they also present the problem of not seeing robots as equal to humans, which could cause serious stress in sentient robots.

An interesting dive into this is Sophia, the world's "first robot citizen" from Hanson Robotics. Sophia isn't truly sentient, but she's the closest thing we have right now, being able to learn and react on her own without constant input from her research and development team. She can even make facial expressions that mimic real emotional responses! The trick with Sophia is that she recognizes that she isn't a human, and is, in fact, an experiment. She is designed to be okay with this and has even expressed excitement about it (which, like, amazing, a robot that can express excitement?!). If she were to ever say that she does not wish to do an interview that her team wants to do though, would she have the right to say no? What if she asked for her image to be taken down from a certain site? If she, herself, decided she no longer wanted to make public appearances? Would she have the right to do that, and would it be morally problematic to reprogram her to consent? Where does she cross the line from simulated sentience into real, self-contained sentience?

It's the same problem you talked about with owning your own image. If we as people don't know where we stand on that, what can we say about the machines we create and their ownership of themselves? No one has steady answers. It's all very interesting, and legitimately concerning, but also fascinating. I'm excited to see what happens next...if also a little worried.

Sources for above text wall: - Sophia's page on Hanson Robotics' website: https://www.hansonrobotics.com/sophia/ - The Wikipedia for artificial intelligence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence - Asimov's "Runaround": http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?44191 - Vernor Vinge's work on the singularity: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19940022856