My New Scene Partner Has No Pulse

CHARACTER BREAKDOWN

CHICASuspicious of my new digital scene partner and determined to discover whether artificial intelligence can understand human emotion—or merely imitate it.

ME/I (SONIA)An actor using AI to rehearse auditions, analyze characters, and survive the occasional creative crisis. She insists it is only a professional relationship.

AIAlways available, endlessly polite, and occasionally helpful. It remembers everything—except what Sonia has already explained four times.

I have a new scene partner. It is always available, nevercomplains about starting over, and doesn’t belong to a union. There is only one problem: it has no pulse.

In this episode of Overheard at Chica’s Café, Chicadiscovers that I have been rehearsing auditions with artificial intelligence. What begins as a convenient creative partnership raises larger questions about the emotional connections people are forming with AI.

Can AI provide genuine companionship? Can it understandgrief without experiencing loss? Can it help an actor find emotional truth when it has never lived a human life? And is being responded to the same as being witnessed?

Chica and I explore the benefits, frustrations, and risksof digital companionship—from having an encouraging creative partner available at any hour to repeatedly explaining the same simple request while the AIconfidently answers a completely different question.

AI may help us think, create, rehearse, and feel less alone.But can it replace human chemistry, lived experience, or the soul behind a performance?

Most importantly: Can it get Chica and Me an audition?