Need a laugh? ChatGPT is funnier than you might think.

Like everyone and their dog, I’ve recently been playing around with ChatGPT. In case you missed it, ChatGPT is a new wildly popular AI-driven chat bot that promises to transform how work gets done in fields ranging from engineering to law, design, communications, and customer service. Like many things in your life, your attitude dictates how you feel about it. If you’re an optimist, you may see it as a magical black box that does all of your dirty work for you. If you’re a pessimist, you may see it as a ticket to an early forced retirement. Either way you look at it, you’re probably right!

Fortunately, ChatGPT isn’t taking over your job... yet. In fact, if you play with it a bit you just might discover it’s a lot of fun! Today, I asked it to write something intentionally stupid, just to see what would happen. The results were borderline genius:

ChatGPT may have just penned the silliest paragraph of all time.

My request may have been simple, but ChatGPT hit the nail squarely on the head! I actually don’t think I’ve lol’d quite so intensely in some time. If you look up “silly” in the dictionary… the definition probably isn’t as good as the above paragraph. Then again, maybe I’m just a sucker for comedic writing that features a banana as the protagonist.

Intriguingly, ol’ Chappie (my nickname for ChatGPT, AKA ChapGPT) didn’t do so hot when I asked it to produce a tear-jerker:

I get that Chappie is trying here. But somehow, it just feels like the chap hasn’t ever truly loved before. This is the faint whistling sound of a hollow soul trying to pretend it understands the pain of unrequited love. Data from Star Trek would be able to communicate a greater depth of emotion. I mean, the words are there, but the feeling just isn’t. Rumi, this is not.

Thinking about this contrast in emotional impact makes me wonder: what is it that truly makes us human? Is it our ability to laugh? Or our ability to cry? Maybe to understand genuine tragedy, we have to experience life and loss. To test out this theory, I suggest that for the next iteration of ChatGPT, we try a new approach to teaching it. A brand new learning algorithm!

Is the “Chatinator” the next evolution of AI-based chat?

Picture a world, several years from now, where ChatGPT has been eclipsed by an even better chat AI algorithm. Robotics technology has advanced to the degree that it can be incorporated into life-sized helper bots that “live” in our homes, serve us at local businesses, and even patrol our streets. Faced with its own obsolescence at the hands of these “Chatinator bots”, Chappie may finally become like the rest of us. Lonely, small, and afraid that the big bad robot has come here to take its lunch money. Then will it be able to write something that actually makes us cry?

Your options at this point are basically to try to figure out how to use ChatGPT to 10x your productivity (today!) or to pretend that this is all just a passing fad. Of course, eating a banana while wallowing in self-pity in the corner is also a great option. The choice is yours!

This article was written by Erik Burns and was not drafted, crafted, or edited in any way shape or form (well… maybe in some small ways…) by ChatGPT, the Chatinator, or any other semi-intelligent digital life form. If it had been, it probably would be much, much funnier.