When it comes to comedy, artificial intelligence is no joke. While some comedians use it, others consider it taboo.
鈥淚'm writing what I observe, taking stories from my life,鈥� said , a Lorain native who describes herself as a poet, artist and stand-up. 鈥淚f I haven't experienced it or been through it, I'm not going to talk about it.鈥�
While she knows some of her fellow comics in Northeast Ohio use AI for marketing materials, she doesn鈥檛 feel the technology has a place in creating material.
鈥淎I doesn't know the human experience,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t doesn't know what we've been through, what we've seen. You think about 鈥楾he Jetsons,鈥� right? They have the robot who was doing all the housework, made the meals, all that, and they were still doing the human things. I feel like folks are using AI for a lot of administrative work.鈥�
Experimentation with writing
Cleveland author takes a slightly different view. He鈥檚 written three books, including one about his days as a stand-up comic. AI wasn鈥檛 available when he was writing jokes, pre-pandemic. Now he uses it in his main gig as a marketing copywriter for a Fortune 500 company.
鈥淕rammarly is kind of like running your stuff through the car wash a little bit,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t kind of cleans up the spelling errors. And I would say it kind of just gets you on the right track.鈥�
He鈥檚 said he鈥檚 unsure if that makes writers lazier, or more efficient.
鈥淚 guess you could say there is a little bit of a laziness component to it,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 don't want to sound like some writing snob 鈥� for some people, even writing in a greeting card is hard. In a positive way, maybe it's kind of like a launching pad. You know, from a copywriting perspective, we're always trying to say the same thing different ways.鈥�
Open to booking
Interest in stand-up comedy shows has exploded since the pandemic, according to Howard Parr, executive director of the Akron Civic Theatre.
鈥淭he first thing I'm doing is going online and looking on YouTube and seeing what they do,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 want to know what we're getting ourselves into, frankly.鈥�
While handling multiple venues and issues such as ticket fees and talent prices, he said he鈥檚 not that concerned with how a comedian generates material 鈥� including the use of AI.
鈥淲e definitely, in our programming, we don't limit (speech),鈥� he said. 鈥淚f there's somebody who's flagrantly promoting violence or racism or that, that's not stuff that we're gonna do. You think of somebody like Dave Chappelle, who gets into all sorts of areas that cause controversy. We would book him in a heartbeat if he wanted to come and spend eight, nine, 10 shows with us.鈥�
Stealing jokes
Chapelle, who lives in southern Ohio, has been co-opted by AI creators as 鈥�,鈥� which uses his actual voice married to fabricated visuals of a baby delivering the jokes. , an emeritus professor at Ohio University, called it stealing.
鈥淟et's just be clear here: All the large language models are stealing because nobody's paying a license for all this copyrighted material,鈥� she said.
Lee, an emeritus professor at Ohio University, specializes in American humor. She鈥檚 written books about topics ranging from Mark Twain to 鈥淢AD Magazine,鈥� and she has been following the latest developments with AI. In her view, AI material isn鈥檛 protected as parody - it鈥檚 derivative of existing material.
鈥淛okes get old, and, insofar as the jokes will be derivative in the first place, they will be novel,鈥� she said. 鈥淭heir novelty is likely to wear off pretty fast, because we know that some things are funny the first time around and not again because of the elements of surprise.鈥�
Lee does not see a business model in live audiences watching a robot tell jokes at the local comedy club. But could they cut through on social media? She called them 鈥渁 novelty.鈥�
鈥淚n a world that's full of that stuff, what's going to stand out? Nothing,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t would have to be something remarkable. And in the nature of large language models and algorithms, remarkable is only available if you can sift through something and find a new algorithm.鈥�
