Live magic and AI - an uncomfortable mix with a surprise end #
I took my kids to see two illusionists, Jay and Joss, at the Theatre Royal Winchester this evening. Spoiler alert - at the time of writing the home page for the theatre is for an upcoming performance for kids ‘The Dinosaur Who Pooped’ so apologies to those who may have clicked that link before reading this.
I’m old enough to remember old school magicians on TV back in those wonder days when we only had three, then four television channels. David Nixon, Paul Daniels and the wonderful Tommy Cooper - yes I do just about remember Tommy Cooper but mainly because he was my grandfather’s favourite entertainer and as loveable & funny as he was magical.
Jay and Josh are both likeable talented magicians from the very same stable. They cut each other in half, disappeared then reappeared behind curtains, did some Houdini style escapism all a bit old hat to me but my 11 year old son and his friend loved it. They knew it wasn’t magic but spent their time trying to work out how it was all done. To me that’s always been the fun of watching magicians.
There was no ‘glamorous assistant’. Even in my day a woman gentiley stepping around the stage in a spangly bathing costume felt awkward. Instead they had an AI assistant initially on screen then some sort of mini Segway with an tablet attached. Called ‘Deborah’, I suspect as a side swipe at Paul Daniel’s assistant then wife Debbie McGee. If the glamorous assistant felt awkward having AI intrude into a fun magic show felt borderline sinister.
I couldn’t work out if there was an angle. Sometimes the AI narrative felt quite dark, other times I began to suspect they were being paid to normalize AI in our everday culture outside of tech.
The show came to an end. The angle was revealed. The two magicians talked about the need for us to remember to look up and celebrate the real world not let the algorithms coerce us into always looking down at their virtual one.
It was a simple, positive message asking us not to forget that we have a real world as well as a digital one. I walked away feeling good about the show.
Most of all I wondered if we could find a way to repeat that simple message whenever something real was happening - just so we never allow the digital world, ai and its algorithms to lull us into forgetting.
