Summary

The author discusses the challenges and limitations of artificial intelligence in writing comedy, drawing comparisons with his grandfather's long-winded storytelling and the tedium of historical speeches, ultimately concluding that human comedians excel because they can fill gaps in knowledge with humor.

Abstract

The article titled "Artificial Intelligence Writes Comedy" humorously recounts the author's attempt to have an AI named Jasper write a funny story using keywords like "Comedy," "Modern Life," and "Toilet Humour." The AI's output is described as verbose and lacking in punchlines, reminiscent of the author's late grandfather's meandering tales. The author reflects on his grandfather's war stories, which, while historically significant, often lacked a comedic punchline. He also references Theodore Roosevelt's speech to illustrate the perceived dullness of historical texts. The author suggests that true comedy arises from a comedian's ability to interject humor into serious narratives, a skill that AI, historical figures, and even the author himself struggle to replicate. The piece concludes with a self-deprecating note and a plug for the author's other works on Medium, along with a subscription invitation.

Opinions

AI, specifically the program Jasper, is deemed inadequate at producing genuine comedy due to its lack of a punchline and overly verbose storytelling.
The author's grandfather's war stories are characterized as long and tedious, though they are afforded respect due to their historical context.
Theodore Roosevelt's "Duties of American Citizenship" speech is labeled as boring, highlighting the author's view on the dryness of historical political speeches.
Comedians are celebrated for their ability to transform mundane or serious topics into humor, a skill that requires a certain level of ignorance or creative exaggeration.
The author expresses self-awareness about the potential for his own writing to be perceived as boring, using it as a segue to promote his other articles.
There is a subtle critique of the expectation for writers to produce content for little reward, as implied by the article "I Write For Beer — And So Should You!"

Artificial Intelligence Writes Comedy

Jasper, Write Me a Funny Story!

—If you can

Short of time this week, I tried to get an AI program called Jasper to write this story for me using the keywords: Comedy, Modern Life, and Toilet Humour.

This is what I got:

Technology and modern life are always good topics for comedy. As is toilet humour. So here’s a story that will have you rolling around on the toilet floor laughing. We all need a good laugh once in a while. Jasper is a toilet humour aficionado, and he’s going to write us a story that will have us laughing our guts out. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the show…

OK, let’s stop there (it goes on for infinity).

I can assure you that I didn’t roll around on the floor laughing. And there was certainly no show. And where’s the punchline?

It reminded me of a stand-up who can’t get to the point. Or one of my grandfather’s stories.

My grandfather’s dead now, so he won’t mind me talking about him. But when he used to visit us in the school holidays, we dreaded the moment after dinner when he started on one of his stories.

He fought in WW2. (For younger readers that was a massive war that started in Central Europe. Not too far away from where there’s a massive war now — you read it first here!)

Grandfather was a telegraphist aboard HM ships that operated in the North Atlantic. In short, he was lucky to be alive, he saw ships go down, and saw men in the water. So we afforded him the time to listen to his stories, even if they did redefine the definition of meandering.

His stories normally started with some vague anecdote about a recent shopping trip, before inflating into a Ben Hur style epic, covering every topic from the building of The Great Wall of China to The Apollo Moon landings.

The experience was exhausting. But we kept on nodding, desperately wondering when he was going to come back to the shopping trip, and the long awaited punchline.

It rarely came. And by the time he got on to Scottish locomotives, he’d put himself to sleep, leaving us wondering where the past two hours had gone.

My grandfather’s monologues were like a Jasper story. Vague, rambling and devoid of an ending.

Artificial Intelligence can’t do comedy. Even if their avatars look like this:

‘Hi, I’m an idiot, and today I’m going to bore you to death with a story cooked up from a load of regurgitated phrases and sentences stolen from Wikipedia.’

Have you ever read Theodore Roosevelt’s “Duties of American Citizenship” speech? You should have done if you’re American. I’ve read it, and I’m British for God’s sake!

“Of course, in one sense, the first essential for a man’s being a good citizen is his possession of the home virtues of which we think when we call a man by the emphatic adjective of manly. No man can be a good citizen who is not a good husband and a good father, who is not honest in his dealings with other men and women…

Boring, isn’t it?

I only remember it from a module I took at school on American History. The joke being:

— American History?

— What history?

We all thought American history started with Coca-Cola and Madonna, and that John Wayne, Rio Bravo and all that Western crap with cowboys and Indians was just made up by Hollywood in order to sell more guns…

So anyway, back to my point.

I’m no historian, but I guess Roosevelt was no comedian. Because comedy writers have one thing in common. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Roosevelt was boring, but he seemed to have a grasp of something.

Comedians know nothing about anything, so they have to fill in the missing bits in their knowledge —which is most of it — with gags.

Watch any great stand-up, and they’ll take a serious story — be it Jesus, Gandhi, The Moon landings — and fill it with gags, hence, make the mundane funny.

Which is more than can be said for Roosevelt, Jasper, my grandfather, or myself.

Thanks for reading. If you’re interested in more boring articles, click here:

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Why I’ll Never Have a Dog — Ten Days of Dog Sitting Hell!

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