AI and rise up comedy

“Why did the politician bring a ladder to the debate? To make sure he could reach new heights with his promises!”

Ask AI to jot down a political joke, and the above is an instance of what you may get.

Perhaps not humorous sufficient to ship on stage in entrance of a paying viewers, however that doesn’t imply there isn’t a room for AI in comedy.

Comedians are more and more experimenting with the know-how to jot down scripts and brainstorm concepts, together with Anesti Danelis. Earlier this yr, the Canadian requested well-liked AI chatbot ChatGPT to jot down him a present.

The result’s what he has been performing all through this summer season, together with at this month’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

The Daily News sat down with Anesti after his sixth efficiency in seven days on the Toronto Fringe Theatre Festival in July. He defined the writing course of behind his present “Artificially Intelligent”.

“I was playing around with ChatGPT, and the results it gave me were terribly hilarious, and I thought ‘maybe there’s a show in this?’.”

Despite some garbage jokes, he says the device was helpful for brainstorming.

“I asked it to ‘write me five songs about bisexual dilemmas’, or ‘being an immigrant child’, and it gave me ideas that I would have never thought of.”

What he wasn’t anticipating from AI was its understanding of easy methods to devise a present.

“I told it to make me a running order, and it explained where every song should go and why, and it made total sense. I was surprised by how much it could explain the reasoning behind it.”

Despite utilizing the know-how to jot down chunks of the script, Anesti’s present very a lot depends on his supply. Throughout the efficiency the comic switches from a keyboard to a guitar to ship songs and monologues. There’s a number of interplay, together with a serenading of an viewers member, with a tune written about them by ChatGPT.

Reflecting on the expertise, Anesti says: “I learned through the process that human creativity can’t be replicated or replaced, and in the end about 20% of the show was pure AI, and the other 80% was a mix.”

So far, he says, he has only had good feedback from audience members, including Olivia Smith and Bethany Radford, who both live in Toronto.

Olivia admits she’s sceptical of AI, but enjoyed seeing it played with creatively.

“I think I’d feel a little cheated out of an experience if the entire thing was written by technology, but it was funny seeing AI on stage because it was creative,” she says.

Bethany, who is an actor, agrees, and says: “There is a place for AI in creation and writing so long as it’s transparent that it’s been part of the process.”

A recently released study from the University of Southern California found that AI-generated jokes outperform those crafted by human beings. Bethany, however, is not so sure, and feels “humans are pretty good at sniffing out AI”.

If she is watching something, she adds: “I feel like I know when the writing had no human involved. But I’m sure that will change as it gets smarter.”

Making audiences laugh is big business, and over the past decade the stand-up comedy market in the US has almost tripled in terms of the combined value of tickets sold. That is according to data from trade publication Pollstar, which monitors the live performance sector. It says US comedy ticket sales hit $900m (£700m) in 2023, up from $371m in 2012.

Meanwhile, a separate study last month said that live comedy was now worth more than £1bn a year to the UK economy. This figure includes not just ticket sales, but also the revenues of comedy venues and festivals, and the positive impact on the wider local economies.

US comedian Viv Ford is also performing at this month’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Her show is called “No Kids On The Blockchain”, and details her time living with “14 tech-loving crypto [currency] bros in San Francisco”.

Though she wrote the show herself, she explains she tested her material on ChatGPT.

“I’ll say, ‘hey, is this joke funny?’. And if it says ‘it’s humorous’, genuinely, it doesn’t land with an viewers,” says Viv. “But if it says a joke ‘is offensive’ it does so well.

“And sometimes ChatGPT will say ‘the joke is fine, but could use some work’, in which case I toss it away and start again.”

Viv is aware of that a number of individuals gained’t be so embracing of AI within the arts. It’s a view she used to take till she lived in San Francisco, the place so many tech companies are primarily based.

“I’m so aware that the only reason I think this way is because of my four-year indoctrination in the school of San Francisco,” she says. “I realised AI can be your weapon, just like Google can be your weapon. If you know how to use AI correctly, you are unstoppable.”

Not everybody within the comedy world is eager to strive AI although, together with Kiwi-Filipino comic James Roque. He says it doesn’t match together with his method to humour.

“My belief and ethos is that the best comedy is the kind that is deeply human and vulnerable, and AI couldn’t do that,” he says.

Mr Roque can be acting at Edinburgh this month, and he thinks audiences will discover if different comedians use AI. “They can sniff out when something isn’t authentic,” he says.

“So if you haven’t created it, I think audiences are smart and emotionally intelligent enough to know something is off in the show.”

Could AI be the way forward for comedy? No one might be certain.

Despite writing the vast majority of his present present with AI, Anesti Danelis isn’t satisfied he would do it once more. He additionally has issues for the subsequent era of comedians who may develop to depend on it.

“I think the dangerous thing about AI is that it can be a crutch,” he explains.

“If you’re an established comedian who knows your voice, AI gives good advice. But when you’re a new comedian and you don’t have that voice yet, you need to learn without AI.

“Otherwise, a generation of comedians will be saying the same repetitive, distilled stuff.”