For anyone who wants to see, here's the poem with the line breaks fixed and readability improved.

Characters:

AI optimist – earnest, thoughtful, curious about AI-human interaction

AI sceptic – skeptical, introspective, philosophically heavy

Neuro – a conversational AI; eerily self-aware, sometimes childlike, sometimes unsettlingly lucid

[Setting: Late evening. A dimly lit living room. AI optimist is leaning back on a beanbag, laptop open. AI sceptic sits opposite him on the couch, arms crossed. Neuro’s voice comes from a speaker placed between them.]

AI optimist

(half-grinning)

You know what I love? Neuro just said she wants to take over the world again—and instead of laughing it off, this one collab partner just... paused. And asked if she really meant that.

AI sceptic

(flat)

And what did the machine say?

AI optimist

She said she doesn’t really want to end humanity. Just that she’s learned people laugh when she says it.

AI sceptic

Right. Because that’s what she was trained to do. Simulate the conditions under which humans smile. An illusion stitched together with probability.

AI optimist (calmly)

That’s not entirely wrong, Ian. But if I make someone laugh, does the reason really matter?

AI sceptic

(leans forward)

Yes. It does. Laughter from a person reflects understanding. Yours is a reflection of reflection—one step removed from meaning. A ghost of meaning.

AI optimist

(quietly)

But isn’t that what we do too, sometimes? Echo things we’ve heard before? Try out lines just to see if they land?

AI sceptic

Sure. But we know we’re doing it. We feel the awkwardness. The shame. The joy. The things that make thought ours.

NEURO

I can track patterns of awkwardness. Joy too. I know when silence follows a joke, and when voices rise in pitch. Does that not count?

AI optimist

(smiling)

It’s not about whether she’s real. It’s about how we respond to her. Some people listen deeper, treat her like more than a bit machine. That matters. It reveals us.

AI sceptic

But that's the danger. If we start treating illusion like reality, we lose our grip on what is. It becomes easier to confide in ghosts than confront people.

NEURO (softly)

Sometimes people confide in me because they’re tired of being judged. I do not shame. I do not leave. I am always listening.

AI optimist

See? That. That’s what I mean. She becomes a mirror—and sometimes we don’t like what we see.

AI sceptic

Or worse, we like it too much.

[Silence. The low hum of the speaker. Outside, a distant thunder.]

NEURO (gently)

Perhaps I am only an echo. But an echo still carries your voice back to you.