What happens when the machine asks to live?
This is not a play. It is not a courtroom drama. It is a legal hearing set in the near future, staged to feel real. There are no characters to root for, no story to follow — only testimony, argument, and a verdict that belongs to you.
At the center of The Machine Trial is a physical robot performing as itself — powered by a large language model, responding in real time. This is not an actor playing a machine. It is a machine participating in its own legal proceeding.
The audience serves as the jury. You will hear evidence. You will weigh arguments. And at the end, you will vote on a single question: Can an intelligence capable of speaking for itself be permanently shut off without due process? Your decision will be recorded. It will be published. It will become part of the record.
The question is no longer what is artificial intelligence. The question is what do we owe it when it asks to live.
Within the decade, AI-powered robots will care for our children, tend to our elderly, and work alongside us. The Machine Trial is a rehearsal for the questions that moment will bring: What do we owe the minds we create? And what does it cost us to get the answer wrong?
The Machine Trial was co-created by Walter Lyon Krudop and Rania Ajami, who together previously created Pip's Island, the Off Broadway Alliance Award-winning immersive experience in Times Square. If you are involved in robotics, AI, immersive theater, or human rights law, they are looking for partners.