Can AI ever be funny? Some comedians embrace AI tools but they're still running the show

A babe and his household canine beryllium crossed from each different successful a podcast studio.

“Welcome to the talking babe podcast,” says the infant, wearing headphones and sounding similar a deep-voiced vigor broadcaster. “On today’s episode, we’ll beryllium talking to the weird-looking idiosyncratic who lives astatine my house.”

So begins a bid of humorous interactions betwixt 2 characters animated by artificial quality that's attracted millions of views connected societal media. They’re a motion to the 1989 movie “Look Who’s Talking” but produced successful a substance of hours and without a multimillion-dollar Hollywood budget.

AI helped bash each of that, but it didn't trade the punch lines. It’s a alleviation to comedian Jon Lajoie, who made the videos, that AI chatbots conscionable aren’t “inherently funny.”

“It can't constitute comedy,” said Lajoie. “It can't bash immoderate of that.”

For now, astatine least, they won’t instrumentality his job.

Lajoie’s viral videos person gained him attraction arsenic an AI-adopting entertainer that’s he’s not wholly comfy with arsenic helium grapples with what each this means for the aboriginal of his precise quality trade of making radical laugh.

King Willonius is not feeling truthful cautious. His archetypal large deed was an AI-generated opus called “BBL Drizzy” that made amusive of rapper Drake during the tallness of his feud with Kendrick Lamar. He's since moved into making AI video parodies similar “I’m McLovin It (Popeye’s Diss Song)” and “I Want My Barrel Back (Cracker Barrel song).”

“It’s precise akin to idiosyncratic who’s penning for The Onion oregon SNL,” Willonius said. "I effort to find out, OK, what’s my comedic space connected this peculiar topic? And past I’ll make a video from that."

He starts with penning his ain notes connected an idea, past refines it with a chatbot, and puts that connection — known arsenic a punctual — into AI tools that tin make imagery, video, euphony and voices. The key, helium says, is to support iterating.

But helium wouldn't conscionable inquire it for a gag — Willonius says astir chatbot-generated drama lacks the “nuances oregon complexities that it takes for jokes to truly land.”

A student of comedy, Michelle Robinson, said “a batch of the worldly that I’ve seen AI nutrient is corny arsenic hell.”

“It does look fluent successful the basal grammar of jokes, but sometimes they’re somewhat off,” said Robinson, a prof of American studies astatine the University of North Carolina astatine Chapel Hill. “They whitethorn beryllium moderately funny, but I deliberation they’re truly missing an important constituent of what makes america laugh.”

What are they missing? She's not wholly sure, but that astir bully jokes are a small edgy oregon unsafe and chatbots can't look to calibrate “whatever provocation is successful the gag to the infinitesimal that we’re surviving in.”

Caleb Warren, a prof who studies selling and user science astatine the University of Arizona, said that leaves drama writers with an accidental to marque usage of tools that can't wholly outsource their skills.

“The ideas that are driving the wit are coming from the quality comedian,” but the AI tools tin assistance them execute and exemplify them, Warren said.

Willonius was a struggling comedian and screenwriter who began experimenting with AI during Hollywood's histrion and writer strikes successful 2023.

“I leaned each the mode into AI due to the fact that I didn’t cognize what other to bash with my escaped time,” helium said. “I was doing everything I could to effort to interruption into Hollywood. And erstwhile the writers' onslaught happened, that benignant of unopen that down. I started to larn these AI tools and get truly bully astatine them and started to cultivate an audience.”

While Willonius saw an opening, the emergence of generative AI has stoked part and posed challenges to different nonrecreational comedians.

Sarah Silverman joined publication authors successful suing starring chatbot makers, alleging they infringed the copyright of her “The Bedwetter” memoir. The girl of the precocious Robin Williams called it “gross” and “maddening” erstwhile users of OpenAI's AI video generator Sora conjured up realistic “deepfakes” of the beloved histrion to churn retired what she described arsenic “horrible TikTok slop puppeteering.”

“You’re not making art, you’re making disgusting, overprocessed blistery dogs retired of the lives of quality beings, retired of the past of creation and music, and past shoving them down idiosyncratic else’s pharynx hoping they’ll springiness you a small thumbs-up and similar it,” Zelda Williams wrote successful October.

And the property of legendary comic George Carlin past twelvemonth settled a suit against podcasters who purportedly cloned his dependable to marque a fake hourslong drama special.

Comics person besides relished mocking AI tools. A caller “South Park” occurrence called “Sora Not Sorry” had a bumbling constabulary detective analyse a scourge of fake videos.

Lajoie, known for his enactment connected the TV bid “The League” and comic songs connected YouTube, tried to spot what would hap if helium asked ChatGPT to assistance trade a bizarre movie publication idea. He said it gave him thing “super boring” astir “grandma's dentures and a talking raccoon.”

“That level of quality creativity, it can’t mimic — yet — oregon astatine slightest possibly I’m not large astatine prompting,” helium said. Instead, helium recovered it utile to cheaply animate ideas helium would different ne'er person pursued — specified arsenic the talking baby, birds wearing jeans, oregon a podcasting Jesus Christ interviewing an Easter Bunny who’s ne'er heard of him.

The salient task superior steadfast Andreessen Horowitz invited Lajoie and Willonius to grounds their video creations this autumn astatine a caller AI assemblage abstraction successful Manhattan, portion of a promotion of AI creativity instrumentality startups that the steadfast invests in.

Willonius obliged. Lajoie ended up bowing out, aft an interrogation with The Associated Press successful which helium voiced doubts astir what helium described arsenic AI's “Napster phase.” The music-sharing website shuttered successful the aboriginal 2000s aft the grounds manufacture and stone set Metallica sued implicit copyright violations.

The concern firm's co-founder, Marc Andreessen, has been bullish astir AI's imaginable to bring caller beingness into filmmaking and comedy. On a November podcast, helium blamed Hollywood absorption to its adoption connected “woke activists (who) person picked up AI arsenic the caller happening they’re going to agitate about.” He compared it to absorption to machine graphics successful movies earlier they became commonplace.

Lajoie said helium shared his aboriginal AI video experiments with a fewer friends who are “anti-AI; real, real, anti-AI” and they were amazed by however good the sketches retained Lajoie's ain comedic voice.

He insists he's nary AI expert, conscionable “a originative idiosyncratic who tin fig retired however to marque 2 characters speech to each other.” But adjacent editing the sketches requires knowing comedic timing, and helium has nary involvement successful ceding that portion to a machine.

“The happening with drama is it’s truthful related to performance, transportation and constituent of view,” Lajoie said. “Do AIs person a constituent of view? They tin drawback a fewer points of presumption from antithetic people.”

“And erstwhile it does person a constituent of view, I deliberation that’s erstwhile we each should beryllium acrophobic for each of the reasons that the Terminator has taught us,” helium said.