Yianni Agisilaou: I, Human
A frequent visitor to the Edinburgh Fringe discussing subjects as diverse as the universe, numbers, willpower, The Simpsons and pockets in women’s clothing, London based Australian comedian of Greek ancestry Yianni Agisilaou’s latest show I, Human exhibits a new found dedication to research which his previous performances have not required.
An examination of the shifting balance between humanity and technology, Agisilaou introduces his hour in the Pleasance’s King Dome as considering “how we got there from here, and where we might go next,” as the generation to whom Space Invaders was a revelation gives way to the age of Facebook, chatbots, fake news, Twitterstorms and referendums swayed by artificial intelligence targeting the easily swayed among the electorate.
His presentation accessible and humorous, despite the one-liners his message is stark, a warning from history where only too recently blue-collar jobs in industry were replaced by robotics, so now the white collar jobs of administration are under threat from the successor to automation, artificial intelligence, a displacement in which we have all been unknowingly complicit.
The technological singularity already creeping up on us, it is is less Terminator and more surprisingly a stealthy variant of Blade Runner‘s Voigt-Kampff test as on a daily basis we are asked to prove that we are human in online interactions, ostensibly in order to attest to our right to complete transactions but simultaneously teaching the artificial intelligences behind the webpages about pattern recognition and our own personalities.
Of course, as anyone who deals with the public at large will know, humanity en masse tends towards a common denominator which is sometimes shockingly low, and learning from the masses so will AI shift in that direction unless checked; human oversight is, at this point, still necessary, and for many purposes, Agisilaou argues, always will be.
His own role as a stand up comedian, a social commentator and in this run a science communicator requiring creativity and emotional intelligence, Agisilaou’s undoubted humanity also grants him adaptability and spontaneity, and while perhaps I, Human is not the funniest show he has presented it is one of the most thought-provoking and interesting.
I, Human continues until Sunday 26th August
