Teaching A Robot To Love

@ The Enmore Theatre

Editor's Pick
$25 / $20

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, Yianni and his trademark accessibly smart comedy hits the Sydney Comedy Festival for a light-hearted look at the upcoming apocalypse.

From suggesting shows on Netflix, tailoring news and ads for you and in myriad places you’re not even aware of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly embedded in our lives.

But far from being a mere ‘You-might-like-this’ internet trinket, AI can also diagnose cancer, drive cars and predict from a photo whether people are criminal or gay (regardless of who’s asking and why). And these abilities are still very much just the beginning.

A growing school of thinkers are demanding that alongside its abilities, we teach it ethics. Can we teach a robot to love humanity? And how hard will that be considering in many ways we still can’t do it ourselves?

A keenly observed but playful hour about futures, possible and desirable, and what trying to replicate our best and mitigate our worst traits teaches us about what it is to be human.

“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.” – Yianni Agisilaou

(also Thu May 17th 18th and 19th @ 9.30pm)

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118-132 Enmore Road
Newtown
+61 2 9550 3666