‘Doomers’ Review: Hunkered Down, Debating the Peril and Promise of A.I.

Conventional wisdom says the theater is slow to react to current events, but dramatists like Ayad Akhtar (“McNeal”) have clamored lately to tell stories about artificial intelligence, sometimes using it to help with the writing.

Matthew Gasda’s new play “Doomers” is an addition to that pack. Inspired by the 2023 ouster of Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, it was written with the help of ChatGPT and Claude. The two chatbots share a dramaturgy credit in the program.

Alas, the hype around that technology does not correlate here with narrative cogency. Despite having a loathsome fictional ex-C.E.O. at its center, and numerous characters who joust over the peril and promise of A.I., “Doomers” possesses a peculiarly self-indulgent quality, as if it takes for granted that its audience is invested from the get-go.

This is a crisis-driven tale set on a single night in San Francisco, just after a tech company, MindMesh, has dismissed its leader, Seth (Sam Hyrkin). Holed up at home, he is plotting to get his job back, while the company’s panicked board tries to figure out how to move forward without him.

A sociopath who lacks the requisite charm, Seth tells his confidants: “I will not compromise; I will not admit fault. I was fired for creating miracles.”

That isn’t how the board would put it, but we don’t meet them until Act II. The first act, by far the stronger half of this meandering play, is all about Seth’s predicament.