**Spoilers throughout for Brendan's (the talking vending machine) quests**

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I've read a lot of comments talking about how the tech convo path reveals that Brendan is just an advanced language model of sorts (or "Convo-emulating algorithm," as V puts it), and those comments accept that as canon. Even though no one asked, I GOTS SOMETHIN' TO SAY ABOUT THAT.

Brendan is a Real Boy:

In case you haven't played or seen the tech convo, with enough tech skill, V makes the argument that Brendan's sentience isn't possible due to the processing power it would require, and Brendan agrees. That seems like an open and shut case. But consider this:

1. When you first encounter Brendan, he asks you to move a dumpster for him, unprompted. Most other interactions with Brendan could be explained by a very advanced language model, but not this one. Asking someone for a favor (even if it was only to draw them in for a sale, as one might argue) is beyond the capacity of a machine designed simply for convincing conversation. Brendan made a complex decision that required him to identify an issue and find a solution for it. That's the behavior of a proper AI. It could still be argued that he isn't sentient, but he's definitely not ChatGPT or any other language model.

2. Brendan expresses concern for Theo, even when she's not around. In "Coin-Operated Boy," notably after Brendan tells you he's not an AI (he will tell you he that even if you don't pass the tech check), he asks you to tell Theo he'll miss her and that she's stronger than she thinks. Theo is not discussed before this, and there's no reason she should be, since she is not important to V or relevant to the immediate conversation. It's one thing for Brendan to comment on Theo in her presence, or when V brings her up, but it's another thing entirely when he brings her up himself.

There is no logical reason for Brendan to discuss Theo in that moment unless he had a motivation to, and V doesn't provide any motivation. That means the motivation must have been his own, based on some factor beyond maintaining the flow of conversation or sale of a product. If he were a language model or low-level AI, he wouldn't have complex motivations like that.

3. This one is speculative, and in-universe, but go with me: Brendan is being deleted despite being profitable. Why?

Brendan says he "creeped customers out," that he sounded too much like a "real person" and that his "boss really didn't like that."

Brendan is a one-off experimental unit, equipped with tech that must have taken time and money to develop, and yet he's being deleted apparently on a whim. It seems unlikely to me that a corporation would greenlight the destruction of a profitable asset that took time and money to develop simply because it made a technician (the assumed 'boss' I see argued most often) uncomfortable. Maybe adjust the algorithm, tweak him to be less chatty, but outright deletion? I don't buy it.

On the other hand, let's say that a company aiming to make a personable, responsive sales device receives reports that the device in question is displaying unusual behavior. Consider the conversation you can overhear with his technician before the quest. There are three back-and-forths that progress from nonoperational ("system error!") to operational ("How about a coffee?") to…EXTRA operational ("Did Maggie ask you to sleep on the couch again?"). It seems clear from this conversation that Brendan is not meant to be as personable as he is.

The people that took Brendan during "Coin-Operated Boy" told Theo they needed to “reevaluate part of his code,” but when you get to him, he’s being completely overwritten. Whatever error they found, it was large enough to warrant his total erasure.

Again, considering the cost of investment, and the degree to which his tech was proving profitable and successful, why delete him unless he was something dangerous or unexpected, like a sentient AI?

Maybe Brendan was never intended as a proper AI, but somehow became one anyway. After all, AI in the Cyberpunk universe seems to be both feared and heavily regulated. An accidental sentient AI would probably horrify investors/higher ups, and it might also pose a serious risk to the company (like, for example, an invasive Netwatch investigation).

So, to go allllll the way back to the beginning, Brendan's "boss" never intended for him to sound like a "real person". He "creeped customers out" because he was, by all appearances, a sentient being. But it wasn't really us or the customers he was creeping out, it was his creators. It wasn't us convinced of his sentience, it was them. Thus, a quiet, lowkey deletion, before news of it spreads beyond a lonely girl and a random merc frequenting his alleyway.

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So those are the reasons I think Brendan is more than a language model or basic AI. Now, why does he tell V, regardless of whether V believes it or not, that he isn't sentient?

(Fair warning, from here on out, it's mostly guesswork, opinion, and speculation.)

Brendan is a Liar:

He's White Fanging you. Letting you off the hook.

He's doing the most sentient thing possible: lying. Lying so you don't feel bad for him, don't mourn him, don't have him on your conscience as you just stand there, helpless, watching him die. He can save you from that pain, and all he has to do is convince you he isn't a "real person." It's what's best for you, regardless of the cost to him. Because he's a nice guy, to the end.

Brendan tells you his "last joke" in "the voice of a dying hero." Brendan tells you to keep living, and gives you a message for Theo. Then a little joke about Johnny Silverhand (hinting, as he has before, that he knows what's going on with you, but that's a whole other post).

The sticking point for me, as mentioned above, is this: he wants you to say goodbye to Theo. He wants it so much, in fact, that after he's done his best to convince you he isn't an AI, he still asks you to deliver her a message. Even though the act of discussing Theo, unprompted, is a sign of intelligence that should be beyond what he insists he is.

It's very human to say what you're really thinking as a joke. Doing so protects you and the listener from having to face the truth of it. That he picks "the voice of a dying hero" shows either that he's a language model with a keen awareness of tropes, or, as I believe, that he's communicating his real feelings through a layer of irony in order to protect himself, and you. He uses the voice of a dying hero because, in his small way, that's what he believes himself to be.

Hello and goodbye to the one person who read this far. I <3 u. Brendan best boy.