AI and Common Sense
Large Language Models and paraprosdokian one-linersAn LLM will never write a joke that gives another LLM a good honest belly laugh.
Read More ›Taghumor
Jerry Seinfeld Had a Bone to Pick with AI in His Duke Speech
Seinfeld: the implicit message of AI is that "you can't do it"The iconic comedian and author Jerry Seinfeld gave the commencement speech to the class of 2024 at Duke University; as a supporter of the state of Israel, dozens of students walked out of the ceremony, chanting “free Palestine” while the larger crowds in the stadium counteracted by chanting “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!” Seinfeld went on to give a wise, insightful, and of course, hilarious speech about hard work, family, and using one’s privilege to benefit the world. He also had some comedic remarks on artificial intelligence, and what the hype over large language models unfortunately says about modern American culture. “AI is the most embarrassing thing we’ve invented during man’s timeline on earth,” said Seinfeld. “This seems to be the justification Read More ›
Funny ChatGPT: a Solution to Striking Joke Writers?
Even if ChatGPT can mimic humor, it doesn't care if you laugh at the jokesCan ChatGPT write funny jokes? The answer is yes. To try and generate some short jokes, I went to ChatGPT and started all my queries with: “Complete the following to make it funny:” Doing so alerts ChatGPT about my end goal. Without this preamble, I could make queries all day and get no funny responses. I started with the beginnings of some well-known quotes. To Be or Not to Be Consider for example the quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “To be or not to be, that is the question.” I instructed ChatGPT with the following command: “Complete the following to make it funny: To be or not to be…” One of the better responses I got was “To be or Read More ›
Can a Chatbot Tell Jokes. Yes, If They Are Stale
As chatbots sort through the vast mass of online information for appropriate responses to questions, jokes were bound to come upCorinne Purtill reported a year ago at Time Magazine on Jon the Robot, a chatbot that was programmed to learn to tell stand-up comedy jokes: An experiment billed as a comedy act, Jon is the brainchild of Naomi Fitter, an assistant professor in the School of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Oregon State University. The tiny android performs when a handler (who must also hold the mic) presses a button, then tells the same jokes in the same order, like a grizzled veteran comic at a down-market Vegas casino. Corinne Purtill, “Artificial Intelligence Can Now Craft Original Jokes—And That’s No Laughing Matter” at Time 2030 (January 4, 2022) But the robot’s act is more human than it might first Read More ›
Can the Machine Know You Are Just Being Sarcastic?
Researchers claim to have come up with an artificial intelligence program that can detect sarcasm on social media platformsThere’s an old joke about the bored engineering student slouched in the back of the Remedial English Grammar and Composition class. The instructor was lecturing on the use of negatives. In some languages, she explained, negatives can be piled on top of one another without changing the overall negative (“no”) meaning. But in English, adding two negatives together creates a positive. For example: “I am never going there again.” means just what it says (“never”). but “I am not ‘never going there again’” means that maybe you are going there again (“yes, if some changes are made”). The first negative negates the second. The teacher went on to say, “But there is no language in the world in which two Read More ›
Random Thoughts on Recent AI Headlines: Google Gives Away “Free” Cookies…
Also, why AI can't predict the stock market or deal with windblown plastic bagsA good rule of thumb is that unexpected outcomes increase exponentially as a function of AI complexity.
Read More ›