Earlier this year I saw an unorthodox off-Broadway show called Hello, Hi There. Directed by Annie Dorsen (Passing Strange), it was a literally a randomly generated, hour-long dialogue between two faceless chatbots pulling from thousands of inputted lines. You might think watching text on two projection screens would be boring, but it was refreshingly engaging, especially as the male and the female bot each had an accompanying voice. No two “performances” were ever the same, and many of the verbal/written exchanges were quite hilarious (although occasionally the chatty chatbots got stuck in a loop).

Today @magnetgirl on Twitter mentioned the following video to me, which strongly reminds me of that production. Here two chatbots with avatars interact in a similarly unusual and goofy manner that totally flies in the face of the scary AI scenarios we’ve been fed through science fiction books and films. Prime example: “I am not a robot. I am a unicorn.” Just sit back and watch the non sequiturs fly.