"do [this]", Stephen Graham Jones

SS ASFM (Asimov's Science Fiction) December 2007 - science fiction
Over dinner, Leo's dad conjectures about testing for consciousness through language. Leo would have totally ignored his dad if he didn't have an assignment on a similar subject. Later, in his room, Leo processes function loops on his computer for his paper and gets strange results.

A rather cryptically told tale from the viewpoint of two nerds. Some readers may enjoy following these trains of thought. I think I liked this story better in hindsight.