Get out your ID card. A name, a date of birth, an address, a photo. To the state, those few lines say who you are.
Yuri now has the same information on her papers. This week, Beijing issued official documents to this singer entirely created by artificial intelligence. Yet she has no body, no childhood, no home.
The first reaction is to find it absurd, even worrying. But the question deserves closer attention.
What an ID card is really for
We assume an identity document proves that we exist. That is not quite it.
An ID card first serves to answer a practical question: who is answerable for what? It allows you to vote, to sign a contract, to open an account, to be summoned by a judge. It attaches rights and obligations to a name. It says who to turn to.
Seen from that angle, an identity is not a statement about existence. It is a tool for organising responsibility.
We already live surrounded by people who do not exist
French law is full of them. They are called legal persons.
A company has a name, a date of birth, its incorporation, and an address, its registered office. It can sign contracts, own property, hire staff, be taken to court and ordered to pay a fine. Yet nobody has ever passed a company in the street. It is a legal fiction, and an extremely useful one: it makes it possible to know who is answerable for the acts of a group of people.
Giving papers to a virtual character is therefore not so revolutionary. The law has long known how to make exist, on paper, what does not exist in the flesh.
In 2017, New Zealand recognised the Whanganui River as a legal person, regarded by the Māori people as a living ancestor. The river can now be defended in court, represented by two guardians, one appointed by the state, the other by Māori. This case shows that legal personality is not a claim about what is alive or conscious. It is a choice made by a society, to protect or to make responsible.
The real difference
There is, however, a sizeable difference between a company and Yuri.
Nobody falls in love with a public limited company. Everyone knows a company is a construct. A virtual singer, by contrast, is designed so that we forget she is a fiction. She has a face, a voice, a personality. She talks to her fans like a friend.
That is where the ID card can play two opposing roles.
A leash. If it clearly ties the character to the company that controls it, it protects the public. When Yuri deceives a customer, we know who to sue. That is the logic put forward by the Chinese authorities.
A mask. If it gives the character the appearance of an autonomous person, it strengthens the illusion. A fan who learns that Yuri has official papers will find it even harder to remember that she does not exist. And whoever speaks behind her fades a little further.
The right criterion
The question is therefore not "Does Yuri exist?". She does not, and her papers do nothing to change that.
The real question is: does her identity make visible what lies behind her, or does it hide it? It is the same principle we set out when asking whether we have the right to know we are talking to an AI. A good rule enlightens the public. A bad one gives it one more reason to believe.
What we take away
An identity card does not say who exists. It says who answers.
For Yuri, everything will depend on what the authorities choose to write first: the name of a singer, or that of the company speaking on her behalf.