The Edinburgh Fringeisthe worlds largest performing arts festival, but this years event has sadly been canceled due to COVID-19. Fortunately, art junkies can still get their fix ofthe Fringe at a virtual alternative curated by an AI called the ImprovBot.

The system analyzed the100-word text descriptions of every show staged at the festival from 2011 to 2019 a total ofmore than two million words. ImprovBot uses this data to generate ideas for newcomedies, plays, musicals, and cabaret.

The blurbs will then be handed to the Improverts the Fringes longest-running improvised comedy troupe who will stage their own takes on the shows overTwitter.

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The aim of ImprovBot is to explore the junction of human creativity and comedy, and to see how this is affected when an Artificial Intelligence enters into the mix, saidMelissa Terras,Professor of Digital Cultural Heritage at the University of Edinburgh. It is [a] reminder of the playfulness of the Fringe and we invite online audiences to rise to the provocation, and interact, remix, mashup, and play with the content.

In total, ImprovBot aims to create 350 show descriptions, which will be posted every houron Twitter from August 7 to 31. Its already provided a sample of itsoeuvre, which ranges from a terrifying tale of isolation titledCollection to Politics to a hilarious comedy called The Man Behind the Real Song Lovers.

Truth be told, most of the blurbs are pretty nonsensical, so the Improverts will have a tough job adapting the AIs words for the stage. You can judge their efforts for yourself from Friday on Twitter.

Published August 5, 2020 17:21 UTC

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Worlds first AI-generated arts festival program opens this Friday - The Next Web