The Chucklehead Speaks – March

I was in a grocery store with a friend who is obsessed with product ingredients. This is a person who is PhD and I assume would know what Tetrasoduim Pyrophosphate is. Not a chance! What he did was something I never saw before and can’t erase from my mind. He pulled out his phone, opened ChatGPT, pointed to the product’s label and had the answer. So much for higher education!

Make no mistake; this is going to be the future. In some categories it can be a useful tool. For comedy and humor writing, it will never catch up to totally replace the real thing. Can AI be funny? Can it read the audience and find a way to connect? Can it bomb, pull itself off the mats and try again?

There are too many types of humor, something for everybody. Humor is contextual, situational, emotional and real. It’s reaching in your soul, pulling out a demon, exposing it to light and telling an engaging story that to some, would be humiliating. For the folks who write and cartoon for this rag, it’s refreshing to share. We take risks. Not all that you read is true although it’s not uncommon to relate.

With the exception of adult cartoons, most sit-coms and late night TV shows are not funny anymore. They play it too safe and spoon feed us a reason to get off the couch to finally take on the chore of cleaning the black mold off the bathroom ceiling. The writers for these shows are worried about their jobs. They should be.

We tested AI and the jokes were predicable, unemotional and safe. I’ll take safe for some aspects of my life. Not for love and not for humor. Reaching deep in the bilge of my soul and pulling out something unpredictable, emotional that I risk sharing with you to make you smile is the best job in the world, even when it bombs.

Stevie P. // office@foolishtimes.net