Improbotics, global pioneers in AI improvisation comedy, are bringing their hilarious “groundbreaking work” that “poses serious philosophical questions” (Fringe Review 2022) to the Leicester Comedy Festival.
Improbotics features human actors collaborating with AI to deliver a one-of-a-kind theatrical experience. 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 60-minute show will be followed by a 15-minute audience Q&A session, allowing attendees to delve deeper into the fascinating intersection of art and artificial intelligence.
The show presents a robot performing alongside human actors. The bot uses state-of-the-art AI software (developed by the show creators and based on ChatGPT-4 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.
The show won the Most Innovative Show Award (Online Paris Fringe 2020), the ‘Ballsy Award’ (Binge Fringe 2020), and was invited to the Royal Institution (BEYOND conference 2023).
Since 2016, Improbotics has been inventing new art forms and merging cutting-edge AI and VR technology with the art of improvisational theatre, captivating audiences worldwide with their unique and innovative performances.
Based in Belgium, Canada, Sweden and the UK, the theatre company was co-created by renowned research scientists in AI and robotics Dr Piotr Mirowski and Dr Kory Mathewson, by Fullbright Fellow and lecturer in digital media design Dr Boyd Branch and by drama lecturer Sarah Davies.
“Kory and Piotr boldly and hilariously go where no one has ever gone before: actual artificial intelligence improv. I will stick with artificial stupidity.” Colin Mochrie, Canadian comedian, Edinburgh Fringe 2017.
Event Details:
Date and Time: Saturday 24 February and Sunday 25 February at 4:30 pm
Duration: 75 minutes
Venue: Phoenix Arts Centre, Leicester
For more information, visit https://improbotics.org/
