DELRAY BEACH – The application of artificial intelligence in the realm of comedy is intriguing.
Applause Break is incorporating some aspects of AI into our coverage (the graphic above is AI generated).
Vulture.com appears to be similarly interested. It asked ChatGPT two write jokes in the styles of six popular New York comedians, then had those comedians critique those jokes.
Comedian Gary Gulman, an Applause Break favorite, is among those comics. His critique of the AI jokes offers a little insight into his joke writing. Even for those disinterested in AI, it’s worth the read.
Frequent Applause Break readers will remember that we did something similar to what Vulture did when comedians Matt Bellak and Tim Hanlon last came to town. Here’s the video.
Today’s Stand-Up Spotlight also links to features on Reema Jallaq (AKA: Caucasian_Arab), Ms. Pat, Tim Heidecker and Margaret Cho.
For those looking for a little extra funny tonight, don’t forget that Nadeem Awad and friends are at the Dania Improv. Showtime is 8 p.m.
STAND-UP SPOTLIGHT – March 8, 2023
6 Stand-ups Analyze ChatGPT’s Attempts to Steal Their Jobs
Artificial-intelligence technology has come a long way since Netflix released “The First Stand-up Comedy Special Written Entirely by Bots” on YouTube in 2021. Written by comedian Keaton Patti, that “special” imagined the type of material a robot might write if it were trained on “400,000 hours” of raw stand-up-comedy data — jokes like “I am now so old my birth certificate is death certificate” and “Free speech? Not no more. Costs $17.” Two years down the line, Netflix no longer needs to speculate. Thanks to the rise of AI text engines such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, anyone with access to the internet can now generate an artificially intelligent tight five about any topic their heart desires. YouTubers have performed stand-up written by ChatGPT for vlog content, it has inspired popular Reddit threads, and ChatGPT itself once generated a stand-up routine in place of an error message to let users know its servers were at capacity. These experiments reached the height of their publicity in early February, when an endless Twitch stream of an AI-generated, Seinfeld-inspired sitcom called Nothing, Forever (built using OpenAI’s technology) was temporarily taken offline by the platform because the show’s AI “Jerry” delivered a transphobic monologue during one of its stand-up interstitials.
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Reema Jallaq Is Healing the World With Laughter as the Caucasian Arab
Do you remember a time when watching a comedy helped you forget pain you were feeling? That line in a movie that made you laugh so hard you forgot why you were upset or sad for even a short time?
This is the precise reason Reema Jallaq, otherwise known as the Caucasian_Arab, became a comedian. Reema fell in love with comedy during middle school. She wanted to use laughter to heal the world. Her motto is, “Laugh a little and heal the world.” In fact, Reema has been healing people with her comedic nature and style on Instagram and on her TikTok, but that’s not the only thing she does.
Ms. Pat won’t hold back on telling jokes that hit hard and come from experience
The words raw and uncut fail to encapsulate the audacity of comedian Ms. Pat’s brand of humor.
Her Emmy-nominated series “The Ms. Pat Show” — a multigenerational family comedy not unlike “Roseanne” but with much sharper language — deals with issues like abortion, addiction and abuse. The third season of the multi-cam sitcom premiered on BET this week.
Why Tim Heidecker Is One of the Best Comedians Today
Tim Heidecker is far from a household name, and yet, for close to 20 years he’s been revered by fans of his boundary-pushing brand of comedy. From his early days working with frequent collaborator Eric Wareheim on Adult Swim series like Tom Goes to the Mayor, and later Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! to his recent multimedia projects drenched in social media and political commentary, Heidecker has moved beyond being simply a brash, offbeat, experimental jokester to establish himself as one of the most innovative, important, and genuinely great comedians of all time.
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Margaret Cho is angry—and you should be, too
“If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.”
This is how comedian and activist Margaret Cho described the theme of her upcoming tour “Live and Livid,” but also her general state of being, in an interview with the Voice. “If you are looking at the news, if you’re a political progressive, if you’re a feminist, if you’re queer, if you’re a person of color, all of these things, it’s really an affront to our way of life.”
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