Adapt or die. That seems to be the stage we’re at with AI now that it’s robo-claws are plunging ever deeper into more and more of our everyday lives. The Edinburgh Festival has long been a forum for contemporary ideas, so little surprise then that digi-based shows and events are on the uptick. Arguably the most petrifying sounding (don’t say that! Remember: adapt or die!!) is AI Mozart: ChatGPT Composed This Concert in which a real human (Matthew Shiel) plays piano works created by a non-human. Taking audience participation to new levels are Improbotics with RoboTales where a cute robot called A.L.Ex receives, digests and feeds your suggestions to the stage actors.

In Douglas Widick’s Paperclip, Microsoft Word’s writing assistant Clippy is travelling forward and then back in time to warns us all about an impending techno apocalypse. Over 20-minute chunks three times an evening, AI Campfire is hosted by a database called Symbiolene who conjures spirits of Scotland’s past to warn us of the dire consequences in pushing nature too far.

At the Art Festival, Tipping Point features new work by seven artists, including Rachel Maclean and Kiki Shervington-White, who are exploring the future that we might all want. And at the Book Festival, the topic is raised in Children’s Creativity And AI which features illustrator and author Chloe Savage considering how AI could be a force for good, while Richard Susskind aims to demystify some of the more troubling assumptions about AI.

AI Mozart: ChatGPT Composed This Concert, St Vincent’s, 2–22 August, various times; RoboTales, Gilded Balloon Patter House, 30 July–17 August, 7.40pm; Douglas Widick: Paperclip, Gilded Balloon Patter House, 30 July–25 August, 10.20pm; AI Campfire, Venue 13, 1–23 August, various times; Tipping Point, Inspace, 7–31 August; Children’s Creativity And AI, Edinburgh Futures Institute, 10 August, 6.15pm; Richard Susskind, Edinburgh Futures Institute, 24 August, 3.15pm; picture: Chloe Elizabeth.