Fresh from his stand-up comedy special for ABC TV with his award nominated show Pockets of Equality, and a run of shows at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival last month, thoughtful and witty comedian Yianni Agisilaou brought his latest show "Teaching a Robot to Love" to the Enmore Theatre this month for the Sydney Comedy Festival.
The show takes a light hearted but earnest look at the increasing amount of Artifical Intelligence embedded in our everyday lives - far beyond what the average human realises. From here, it's only a small leap of faith to imagine a future world where workers in a multitude of occupations are being replaced by artificially intelligent robots.
Creative or emotional careers however? You're safer a little longer, according to Yianni and his research.
His is an intelligent brand of comedy that (mostly) skips cheap laughs for longer bits with humour entangled in reflections on human nature and society.
It's somewhat reminiscent of the work of Alice Fraser, another Australian comedian who will make you think as much as laugh.
Yianni Agisilaou says, “I’m exploring the human effects of technology. AI soaks up prejudices faster than a curious child with bad parents - and we’re already putting it in charge of decisions that impact people’s lives. Do smartphones and social media ruin our social skills? Does training a chatbot on Twitter turn it into a douchebag? Microsoft found out with its chatbot Tay, that it really, really does. After Tay variously claimed Bush was responsible for 9/11, called a high profile blogger a whore, and compared Ricky Gervais to Hitler, Microsoft took Tay offline for some serious time out. This whole area is fascinating.”
We caught the show on a sold out Friday night with a proper Friday night Newtown crowd (read: scattered inebriation), and witnessed the best comedic take-down of a heckler we've seen in a while. Surely we all know by now to be wary of heckling a comedian - especially a smart one!
"Teaching A Robot To Love" is an entertaining hour that will make you laugh, make you think, and perhaps make you question the future human prospects of your career choices.
Follow Yianni on his website and Facebook page to keep up to date with his next shows
Previous work "Pockets of Equality" is available to watch on ABC iview until June 11 - don't miss it, it's another ripper of a show.
| 118-132 Enmore Road | |
| Newtown | |
| +61 2 9550 3666 | |
| http://www.enmoretheatre.com.au/ | |
| https://www.facebook.com/enmoretheatre | |
| https://twitter.com/Enmore_Theatre |
