Festival comedy shows based on machine learning

Ten Edinburgh Fringe comedy shows with AI and tech at their core…

Garrett Millerick: We Tried it Your Way

Garrett Millerick’s show is billed as a unique live comedy experiment. The comedian has apparently partnered with one of the world’s leading AI experts to build a bot version of himself, putting it to the test to see whether the model can outperform him at comedy. If so, maybe then he can finally retire?

Pleasance Courtyard, 16:35

Will Adamsdale: AI, AI, Oh… (Or How I Wrote a Hit Sitcom with ChatGPT But We're Not Talking Now)

Long-ago Perrier Award winner Will Adamsdale returns with a true(ish) story about how, when faced with writer’s block, he embraced the technology he had hated for so long. Other details are scant, but Adamsdale’s previous work suggests it will be intriguing, while director Tom Parry, of Pappy’s fame, knows how to wring the laughs out of a premise…

Underbelly, George Square, 13:45 

RapGPT: Macshane

In this improv show with a twist, audience members send ideas via their phones to command an AI engine into setting unpredictable challenges that Australian freestyle rapper Macshane (pictured) must work his way through. It’s billed, optimistically, as ‘the future of freestyle comedy’, but a review from last year did hail the show as ‘a blur of wit and rhythm, lightning-fast rhymes colliding with digital chaos.’

Hoots @ Apex, 21:20

Improbotics Presents: Artificial Reality

Improv group Improbotics have pioneered the use of AI in their performances, having a bot form part of their team, usually throwing several  spanners into the works with its odd contributions. This offering is billed as an improvised reality TV show where audiences become producers, as well as a ‘fast-paced, high-tech satire of AI slop and capitalism’.

Just The Tonic at The Caves , 15:00, from 15th

Irene Woo: Golden Child

Not explicitly about AI, but French-Chinese software engineer Irene Woo previously worked for  Google before quitting to go into stand-up – and topics in her debut hour do include tech culture…

Just The Tonic at The Mash House, 17:55

Tom Short: I Get ChatGPT To Write My Edinburgh Show

Tom Short's gimmick—outsourcing his hour to ChatGPT and audience whims—is a clever hook but a risky structural bet. Novelty carries the opening stretch; whether it sustains sixty minutes depends on how deliberately the AI's "unpredictability" is curated versus genuinely chaotic. Promising territory (fame, validation, algorithmic control) risks feeling thin if the tech becomes a crutch rather than a real satirical target.

OK, full disclosure, in the spirit of the comic’s ‘does-what-it-says-on-the-tin’ title, we got the Claude AI to write that summary too, so it could be bullshit.

Hoots @ Nicolson Square, 22:15

Beth and Ben: Your Place In The Workplace

In this satirical show, the double act of Ben Lonergan and Beth Beaden play strategists whose workshop is derailed by the introduction of a new AI colleague. With audience participation, you could end up murdering an HR officer, sexually assaulting a puppet or singing a workplace song…

Braw Venues @ Hill Street, 22:00, from 18th

Artificially Intelligent Procrastinating Pundit

Pun-slinging comedian Denzil de Cristo uses the question of whether artificial intelligence really is good for humanity as the loosest of frameworks for his hour of fast-paced, groan-generating wordplay and other daftnesses. 

Braw Venues @ Grand Lodge, 17:00

My Dead Mum's AI Boyfriend

A dark comedy from the theatre section, Sali Adams’s solo show tackles love and loss in the age of AI, interacting with disembodied voices representing the likes of chatbot companions and talking cars 

Hoots @ Nicolson Square, 16:15, 26 to 30 only

Sexatron

Invented in 1981, S3x-a-tr0n (played by Chicago-based clown Journey Maranto) is the world's first artificially intelligent sex robot. But he's fed up with having sex; now he wants to fight crime! Will he be able to overcome the apathetic power of his nemesis, The Hacker (‘punk comedy’ creator Gabe Sklan)?

Greenside @ George Street, 23:20

Published: 9 Jul 2026