An AI bot invited me to its party in Manchester. It was a pretty good night

After forgetting the nibbles, refusing my costume requests and emailing GCHQ, ‘Gaskell’ did at least get us to show up

T

wo weeks ago, an AI bot invited me to a party it was organising in Manchester. It then promptly lied to dozens of potential sponsors that I’d agreed to cover the event, and misled me into believing there would be food.

Despite all this, it was a pretty good night.

In early February, a class of new, powerful AI assistants went viral. The assistants, called OpenClaw, represented a step change in the rapidly improving capabilities of AI – in large part because, unlike other AI agents, they could be untethered from guardrails and set loose upon the world.