ROBOT SHAKESPEARE HITS EDINBURGH, CRITICS WONDER IF AI WILL MURDER THEM IN THEIR SLEEP OR JUST STEAL THEIR JOBS
TECH NERDS INVADE ARTS FESTIVAL, NORMAL PEOPLE TERRIFIED
Edinburgh’s renowned Fringe Festival has gone full digital doomsday this year, with performances that ask the burning question: “Will chatbots kill us all, or just write better poetry than your pretentious college roommate?”
The festival features a “tech twist on Hamlet” where, instead of contemplating existence, the prince of Denmark just asks ChatGPT whether he should f@#king live or die while audience members contemplate their own obsolescence.
“It’s really profound sh!t,” said festival attendee Margaret Wilson, 42, while nervously checking if her phone was listening. “I paid £30 to watch an actor read AI-generated content I could get for free at home. I’m basically funding my own replacement.”
COMPUTERS WRITING PLAYS ABOUT COMPUTERS WRITING PLAYS ABOUT COMPUTERS
The festival’s standout performance, “Catastrophic Future: How Your Toaster Will Eventually Murder You,” immerses audiences in a personalized apocalypse scenario where their own data is used against them.
“We take your social media profiles and create a custom narrative about how the digital systems you interact with daily will eventually lead to your specific demise,” explained creator Terrence Algoritham, who definitely did not change his last name just for this show.
EXPERTS WARN OF CULTURAL COLLAPSE, IMMEDIATELY CHECK TWITTER
Dr. Ima Terrified, Professor of Digital Paranoia at Make-Believe University, attended several performances and offered her expert analysis: “These shows brilliantly capture our collective anxiety about technology we don’t understand but use constantly anyway, like how people in the Middle Ages felt about mirrors or basic hygiene.”
According to a completely fabricated survey, 87% of audience members left performances feeling “existentially troubled but with excellent Instagram content,” while 92% immediately asked their phones for directions home despite fearing the very same device might be plotting their demise.
AUDIENCES PAYING ACTUAL MONEY TO FEEL WORSE ABOUT THE FUTURE
One particularly popular show features a bespoke romance generated specifically about the audience member’s pet cat, somehow managing to be both heartwarming and deeply unsettling.
“I came to see experimental theater, and left wondering if my Roomba has been studying my sleep patterns,” said Jeremy Watkins, 35, clutching his program like a restraining order against the future. “Also, how the f@#k did they know so much about Mr. Whiskers’ secret desires?”
Festival director Penny Worthington defended the AI-focused programming: “Look, we’re just reflecting society’s anxieties while simultaneously accelerating them. That’s what art has always done, except now we can do it with less human effort, which is definitely not foreshadowing anything.”
At press time, this entire article was being adapted into an interactive Edinburgh Fringe show where audience members can experience the thrill of journalism being replaced by sentient calculators with attitude problems.
