Garrett Millerick: We Tried It Your Way comedy review – Terrifying stand-up
The comedian pits himself against his AI alter ego in a funny, unnerving glimpse of comedy’s technological future
A comedy show that properly incorporates and grapples with the cutting-edge potential of artificial intelligence, there’s irony in Garrett Millerick’s hour starting 20 minutes late as the technology gets a fit of stage-fright and keeps us waiting. However, when the bellicose comic subsequently unveils the various iterations of G-DOG 2.0, an AI trained on the entire catalogue of his stand-up and broadcast output, it’s more than impressive and disturbing enough to justify the faff. Put simply, with Millerick’s harrumphing nihilism to the fore of its calculations, G-DOG is funny. Not Edinburgh Comedy Award-winning funny, but better than many flesh-and-blood chancers clogging up the Fringe.
With the audience submitting suggestions through their phones, the AI shows phenomenal capacity to improvise as Millerick turns the show into a contest between his organic stand-up and that of his avatar. The original comes out ahead but it’s a points decision and his central argument is proved: the revolution is already here and the luddites will be left behind. Like the technology, We Tried It Your Way still feels like an early work-in-progress, albeit a sophisticated one. And when Millerick irons out the uncanny quirks of it, he’ll have something special. And terrifying.
Garrett Millerick: We Tried It Your Way, Pleasance Courtyard, until 30 August, 4.35pm.