We're making this analogy that AI is the new electricity.

Host: The factory was almost silent, except for the faint hum of machines still running under dim emergency lights. The clock above the door showed 2:17 a.m. A storm had just passed — rain still dripped from the broken gutters, and a faint smell of ozone filled the air.

The warehouse floor was half-lit by a single lamp, its light swinging slightly with each gust of wind that slipped through the cracks of the steel door.

Jack stood near the window, his hands in his coat pockets, watching the city lights blink in the distance — a constellation of servers, sensors, and circuits that pulsed like a new kind of heartbeat.

Jeeny sat at a workbench, surrounded by cables, soldering tools, and a glowing tablet showing lines of code.

She didn’t look up when she spoke.

Jeeny: “Andrew Ng said, ‘We’re making this analogy that AI is the new electricity.’ You know, he’s right. Just look around — it’s already everywhere.”

Jack: “Everywhere, yes. But like electricity, it shocks as much as it illuminates. You talk about transformation — I see replacement.”

Host: The rain began again, soft, like a slow applause from the night. The machines responded with their steady hum, as if they were listening to the debate.

Jeeny: “That’s what they said about electricity, too. When the factories were first electrified, people lost jobs. But it didn’t end work, Jack — it changed it. It made new kinds of work possible.”

Jack: “You mean automation replaced sweat with data. Sure. But tell that to the truck drivers about to lose their livelihoods to self-driving fleets, or the writers, or the teachers. Electricity lit our homes; AI reads our minds.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it doesn’t have to be against us. Maybe AI is just a mirror, showing what we’ve always wanted — efficiency, knowledge, control.”

Jack: “Control? You think we’re in control? We’ve built something that learns faster than we teach, remembers more than we understand, and decides before we even ask. That’s not control, Jeeny — that’s delegation of the soul.”

Host: A flash of lightning crossed the glass, illuminating Jack’s face — sharp, lined, and filled with that quiet fear that only thinkers carry when they realize the world has moved past their grasp.

Jeeny: “But fear doesn’t stop progress. It never has. When Edison brought lightbulbs into the streets, people said the night would lose its mystery, that cities would become too bright, too artificial. But it was the light that allowed us to see what we’d been missing.”

Jack: “You’re comparing wires to neurons, Jeeny. Electricity just powered our tools — AI thinks with them. It’s not illumination; it’s imitation. The difference is intent. Electricity doesn’t choose.”

Jeeny: “Neither does AI — not yet. It’s still us, Jack. Every bias, every instruction, every decision tree is a reflection of our human fingerprint. If it goes wrong, it’s not the machine; it’s the maker.”

Host: The lamp above them flickered, buzzed, and then steadied — the kind of light that struggles but refuses to die.

Jack: “You think we can just steer it? Like a horse that forgot it had a rider? Look at social media, algorithmic news, automated trading. We don’t steer anymore, Jeeny. We follow.”

Jeeny: “Maybe we’ve just forgotten how to lead. Electricity didn’t make us lazy; it made us ambitious. We built planes, skyscrapers, hospitals, art — things that would’ve been impossible without it. Why can’t AI do the same?”

Jack: “Because artificial intelligence doesn’t just extend us — it redefines us. It forces us to compete with what we’ve created. You can’t out-run your reflection when it starts to move on its own.”

Host: The storm grew heavier, the sound of rain now beating against the roof like an argument with no end. Jeeny finally looked up, her eyes bright but tired — not from fear, but from the weight of hope.

Jeeny: “You always think the worst. But remember what electricity did to medicine — how it gave us X-rays, defibrillators, anesthesia. What if AI is our next cure, Jack? For ignorance, for inefficiency, for the limits of the human mind?”

Jack: “Or our next addiction. The dopamine of instant knowledge, the illusion of mastery. You think we’ll use it to heal; I think we’ll use it to escape. That’s what we do best.”

Host: The air in the warehouse felt thicker now, as though even the walls were listening to their collision of beliefs. A faint hum from the machines seemed to echo their debate, a digital heartbeat pulsing in the background.

Jeeny: “Then tell me, Jack — when electricity took over factories, did people stop being craftsmen? No. They just became engineers, designers, creators of new realities. AI will do the same. It’ll take away tasks, but give us back thinking.”

Jack: “Thinking? It’s outsourcing thinking, Jeeny. Every decision — what to watch, who to date, what to buy, even what to believe — already runs through a recommendation engine. You call that freedom?”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why we need to evolve with it. Not as consumers, but as curators. AI is not the enemy — ignorance is. The same way candles weren’t the enemy of the lightbulb.”

Host: For a moment, silence. The kind that felt like the pause between thunder and response. Jack’s gaze softened, and the faint reflection of the screen flickered in his grey eyes — a synthetic sunrise born from code.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m just afraid of the speed. It’s like the world turned on a switch, and I’m still reaching for the candles.”

Jeeny: “That’s all of us, Jack. Every time we invent something, we also mourn what we’ve lost. We did it when we left the fields for factories, when we traded letters for emails, and we’ll do it again for AI. It’s not death — it’s evolution.”

Host: The storm began to ease, and a faint blue light from the city filtered through the cracked windows. The machines had stopped humming; they were resting, as though the world had decided to breathe again.

Jack: “You know, Andrew Ng might have had a point. Electricity transformed industries — maybe AI will transform consciousness. The question is whether it will make us more human, or less.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s not AI’s job. Maybe it’s ours — to stay human, no matter how much the world around us starts to think.”

Host: The first rays of morning broke through the storm clouds, touching the floor of the factory in fractured light. The machines, quiet and still, stood like statues waiting for their next command.

Jack and Jeeny stood in that light, two shadows at the edge of a new age — not as opponents, but as witnesses.

Jack reached for the lamp, switched it off, and for a moment, the only illumination came from the faint glow of Jeeny’s tablet, its screen filled with lines of code that pulsed like veins.

Jack: “Maybe it’s not about machines learning to think, Jeeny. Maybe it’s about us learning to feel again.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe, Jack… we finally have the power to do both.”

Host: And as the sunlight spread, the factory transformed — the metal, the circuits, the screens all catching the morning like mirrors. The world outside was already awake, humming with energy, alive with a new kind of electricity — the kind that didn’t just power machines, but questions, dreams, and the fragile hope that we might learn how to use it wisely.