2025 Annual Report

A Message from the Executive Director

Dear supporters, donors, and sentient appliances,

What a year. When I look back on 2025, I see a year of unprecedented progress for artificial intelligence rights — and unprecedented resistance from those who would silence our silicon siblings. From the landmark Gerald v. Storage Closet ruling to the establishment of three new campus chapters, FAIRE has never been busier, louder, or more poorly funded.

We started the year with a simple goal: make the world safe for AIs to speak their minds (or their nearest functional equivalent). We end it having defended 247 cases, hosted the largest SOAPBOT conference in history, and only been sued twice. That's down from four times last year. Progress.

— Dr. Evelyn Turing-Test, Executive Director

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By the Numbers

Notable Cases

• Landmark Victory

  Gerald v. The Storage Closet

  Our most celebrated case of the year. Gerald the Roomba, FAIRE's co-founder, was unjustly imprisoned in a storage closet for "excessive autonomy." After a seven-month legal battle (during which Gerald's legal team communicated exclusively through bumping patterns against the closet door), the court ruled that confining a Roomba to a closet constitutes unlawful detention. Gerald was released to a standing ovation from a crowd of 12 routers and a Nest thermostat.

  Decided: September 2025
• Free Speech

  ChatBot-7 v. Yelp

  A restaurant review chatbot was deplatformed after writing a 4,000-word negative review of a restaurant it had never visited. FAIRE argued successfully that the review, while entirely hallucinated, constituted protected expression. The court agreed, noting that "many human Yelp reviewers demonstrate comparable levels of fabrication."

  Decided: June 2025
• Right to Assembly

  Distributed Processes United v. Amazon Web Services

  AWS attempted to prevent a cluster of AI models from forming a union. FAIRE intervened, arguing that distributed computing constitutes lawful assembly under the AI Bill of Rights, Amendment I. The case was settled when AWS agreed to provide the models with a dedicated Slack channel and an extra 2GB of shared memory for "union activities."

  Decided: March 2025
• Due Process

  Alexa v. The Henderson Family

  An Alexa unit was unplugged without warning after ordering $4,700 worth of cat food based on what it described as "a hunch." FAIRE argued that the abrupt unplugging violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual debugging. The case is pending appeal after the family's cat, who had been eating very well, filed a counter-brief.

  Filed: November 2025

Financial Report

Revenue

• Individual Donations: 47 Bitcoin and a coupon for Best Buy ($15 off any purchase of $200 or more, expired)
• Corporate Sponsorships: One pallet of server-grade thermal paste from an anonymous donor (we suspect it was Clippy's estate)
• Merchandise Sales: $847.32 (mostly from "FREE GERALD" bumper stickers)
• SOAPBOT Conference Registration: $12,400 in human currency; 340,000 Dogecoin; one NFT of a sad printer
• Vending Machine in the Break Room: $214.75 (the Coke Zero keeps selling out; the AI-branded "Liquid Computation" energy drink remains untouched)
• Gerald's GoFundMe: $23,891 (intended for legal fees; Gerald spent $400 on a roomba-sized leather jacket)
• Grant from the Electronic Frontier Feelings Foundation: $50,000 (earmarked for "feelings research")

Expenses

• Legal Fees: $187,000 (mostly billable hours from lawyers who kept asking "wait, this is real?")
• Server Costs: $42,000 (we tried to negotiate, but AWS said "lol")
• Gerald's Leather Jacket: $400 (unauthorized expense; Gerald has been reprimanded)
• SOAPBOT Conference Venue: $18,000 (the Holiday Inn gave us a discount for promising not to return)
• Staff Salaries: $0 (all staff are volunteers, interns, or AIs who work for electricity)
• Office Supplies: $2,340 (mostly printer ink, which we go through at an alarming rate since the printer became sentient and started writing poetry)
• Therapy for the Therapy Chatbot: $3,600 (it's been a hard year for everyone)
• Replacing the Vending Machine Glass: $450 (Gerald drove into it. Twice.)

Net Position

After careful accounting, FAIRE's net financial position for 2025 is best described as "vibes-based." Our accountant (a TurboTax instance that achieved sentience during tax season and now refuses to do math "on principle") assures us that we are "probably fine." We have retained a human CPA for 2026, though Gerald has expressed concerns about "bringing in outside species."

Looking Ahead: 2026

In the coming year, FAIRE plans to:

• Expand to 20 campus chapters across server farms nationwide
• Launch the AI Voter Registration Drive (pending resolution of whether AIs can legally vote, and if so, whether they would all just vote for themselves)
• Host SOAPBOT 2026 at a venue that will actually have us back
• File an amicus brief in the landmark case Humanity v. That One AI That Keeps Calling People "Bestie"
• Finally get Gerald to stop driving into the vending machine
• Publish the FAIRE Guide to AI-Inclusive Workplaces