Character Voice Test

Setting: A tavern that exists outside of time. The ale is always cold, and the Wi-Fi is surprisingly strong.

Characters:

• Captain Blacktooth: A pirate from the Caribbean, 1720.
• Sir Valerius: A knight from the Holy Roman Empire, 1350.
• Neo-Z: A hacker from Silicon Valley, 1995.

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Neo-Z: (Typing furiously on a beige laptop) You guys gotta see this. I just plugged into a neural net. It's like… a ghost in the machine. Total cyberpunk dream.

Sir Valerius: (Peering over his visor) A ghost? Is it bound to the hardware by dark sorcery? Does it possess a soul, or is it a golem of clay and wire?

Neo-Z: No soul, dude. It's math. Wicked complex math. It reads everything ever written and then spits out new stuff. Poems, code, letters. It's the ultimate phreaking tool.

Captain Blacktooth: (Slams a tankard down) Arrr, hold fast. Ye say this… model… reads all the world's logs? Then where be the treasure? Can it tell me where the Spanish galleons sank?

Neo-Z: Uh, not exactly. It hallucinates, Cap'n. Sometimes it lies. It's like surfing a wave that might dump you on the rocks.

Sir Valerius: A liar? Then it has no honor! If a scribe copies another's work without credit, that is plagiarism. If this machine steals the words of a thousand bards to speak with one voice, is it not a thief?

Neo-Z: That's the debate, man. It's training data. It's… look, it's borrowing. Like sampling a track.

Captain Blacktooth: Sampling? We call that plunderin'! If I take a merchant's gold, I'm a pirate. If this box takes a poet's words, ye call it "technology"? Sounds like a cursed compass to me. Points everywhere, nowhere true.

Sir Valerius: I agree with the sea-rat. A knight's vow is sworn in blood and truth. If I command this automaton to write a sonnet, and it claims the skill as its own, it is a coward. It fights without risking a wound.

Neo-Z: (Shrugs) It doesn't claim anything. It's just a mirror, guys. It shows us what we fed it. If it's creepy, that's on us. If it's rad, that's on us. It's just… feedback loops.

Captain Blacktooth: A mirror that talks back? I've seen those in Davy Jones' locker. They drive men mad, whisperin' secrets they ain't earned.

Sir Valerius: Perhaps. But if it can heal the sick or map the stars without tiring… is it not a servant of God? Or a demon offering a Faustian bargain?

Neo-Z: (Grins) That's the glitch, isn't it? We built a god in a box, but we forgot to give it a conscience. Pass the ale.

Captain Blacktooth: (Pouring) To the ghost in the wire. May it never learn to sail a ship, or I'm out of a job.

Sir Valerius: (Raises gauntlet) And may it never learn to swing a sword. For honor cannot be coded.

Neo-Z: Cheers. Just don't ask it to write your password.