The Glasgow Willy Wonka experience made headlines and brought joy to people all over the country last week – although perhaps not in the way the event organisers had hoped.
In case you missed it, families attending Willy's Chocolate Experience in Glasgow were promised “a universe where confectionary (sic) dreams are brought to life” and “a journey filled with delicious treats, enchanting adventures, and moments worth capturing”.
What they actually got was an experience so bad that parents called the police. Attendees found themselves in a barely-decorated warehouse, surrounded by a scattering of props and a small bouncy castle. The actor playing Willy has since said he was given a 15-page script the night before opening consisting of AI-generated gibberish. The Oompa Loompas looked distraught. A made up villain called The Unknown lurked menacingly. Those delicious treats that were promised? They turned out to be a quarter cup of lemonade and two jelly beans per child.
Considering organisers the House of Illuminati were charging up to £35 a ticket for an event that left children and adults alike distraught, it’s no wonder the police were called. It sounds like pure nightmare fuel. After an immediate and angry response from the inital batch of attendees, organisers pulled the plug on the event just hours after opening.
That didn't prevent social media having an absolute field day, glorying in the sheer ludicrousness and awfulness of the entire event.
The warning signs were there. The event website looks slick enough at first glance, but closer inspection reveals AI’s chocolatey fingerprints. After all, what else but AI would come up with such nonsense as “Cartchy tuns. Exarserdray lollipops, a pasadise of sweet teats”?
The full script also appears to have been leaked online, and again, it’s full of standard AI giveaways. For a start, it includes much that is simply impossible and untrue. One particularly memorable section has the actor playing Willy catching a bubble, which then “gently pops, releasing a small, twinkling light that ascends into the rafters, leaving the audience in awe”. The script gives no indication of how this effect was to be achieved. Clearly, AI believes in magic.
I could go on; the full glory of Willy’s Chocolate Experience is a peculiarly enchanting rabbit hole to fall down.
However, for me the lesson is just how easy it is to use AI to create an event that people want to go to – and are willing to part with their hard-earned cash to attend. In this case, attendees got their money back after reality spectacularly failed to meet expectations. But the dangers of using AI in event planning are writ large here; the sheer detachment from reality is something that’s impossible to ignore.
It's incredibly easy to make something, be it words, images, video or audio, using AI. The weird picture at the top of this article? That's not an image from the event: I made it, and it took me less than 60 seconds. Imagine what I could have done if I'd spent 60 minutes on it.
AI undoubtedly has its place in our sector, it's a powerful tool that we can and should explore. But unless there's some kind of regulation, we're only going to see more and more of these stories pop up.
