Improbotics Returns to Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2024

Improbotics, the world pioneers in AI improvisation comedy, are thrilled to announce their participation in the upcoming Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2024, promising hilarious, groundbreaking work that poses serious philosophical questions and addresses the hype, promise and urgent societal concerns around AI, deep fakes and human creativity.

Families attending the Edinburgh Festival Fringe are also in for a treat, for a new, eye-opening experience with Improbotics Kids! 

A.L.Ex and the ImpRobots: an AI Show for Kids:
A sixty-minute, fast-paced, interactive science theatre show that promises to entertain and educate 8+ audiences. This unique performance features real robots, artificial intelligence, and a hearty dose of laughs.

• Dates: Wednesday 31st July to Sunday 18th August, 11:40 

• Duration: 60 minutes
  Venue: Gilded Balloon, Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, 3 Chambers St, EH1 1HT

• Tickets can be found on Gilded Balloon and Edinburgh Fringe

Improbotics:

Improbotics features human actors collaborating with AI to deliver a theatrical experience at the intersection of art, ethics and artificial intelligence. The improvisers take the stage controlled by AI chatbots and image generators, resulting in a fusion of human creativity and machine intelligence that is “not only very funny, but thought-provoking” (Theatre & Tonic 2023 for the Edinburgh Fringe performance at Gilded Balloon). 

The show presents an adorable physical robot (Aldebaran Nao) hosting the show and performing alongside human actors. The bot uses state-of-the-art AI software (developed by the show creators and based on ChatGPT-4, Llama, Gemini and Stable Diffusion) to write dialogue, create hilarious slides, visuals and deep fakes. The AI sends lines to one of the improvisers via augmented reality glasses. The cast's impossible and hilarious challenge is to seamlessly justify, physically and emotionally, nonsensical content made up by AI in a comedy (of speech recognition) errors.

Dr Piotr Mirowski, co-founder of Improbotics, and Research Scientist at one of the world's leading AI labs, has studied the limitations of AI for comedy. With Dr. Boyd Branch, Assistant Professor at Coventry University's School of Media and Performing Arts, and a stellar cast of actors, they created shows that celebrate human creativity empowered by technology. Piotr says: “As scientists and artists, we believe that the intersection of technology and humour can create powerful learning experiences. Improbotics not only entertain but also demystifies the complexities of AI and robotics. It's incredible to see audiences engage with A.L.Ex and walk away with a better understanding of both science and comedy."

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