At a time when ChatGPT threatens to take over people's jobs, a certain set of comedians are getting ready to pit their wits against the bot.
While they promise an evening of laughter, they are also keen on finding out if the audience can distinguish between the sense of humour of a living comedian and a lifeless bot.
The game show Spot the Bot is the brainchild of Janice Bannister, stand-up comic and founder of the comedy school Laughter Zone 101. She was struck with the idea after getting several questions on the role of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in comedy.
“I’ve been in the stand-up comedy business for 20 years, and lately everyone is asking, 'Are comics using AI to write their jokes?'” she said.
The question had Bannister experiment with ChatGPT and see if its jokes made her laugh as much as a comedian's did. After doing her own research on whether a bot’s jokes actually tickle the funny bone, she came to the conclusion: “I don't think we're ever going to be out of business.”
While a bot can come up with a joke on any topic in a jiffy, “they are not writing them from their heart,” she said.
“They're not writing from their life story,” she added.
And oftentimes, she noted, the jokes are from a male perspective. The “bot whisperer” has to specifically ask the bot to generate jokes from a female or millennial perspective, she said.
“And, in my opinion, it’s very generic.”
So, she came up with a new game show that will help find out if the rest of the world thinks so too.
Who’s the bot?
In the interactive game show, there will be five stand-up comics — Jackie Amsden, Tania Taylor, Parvin Sohal, Roger Nairn and Janice Bannister — performing on stage. MC Erin Jeffery will pull out random topics that the comics will then perform their jokes on.
The twist is one of the comics will be performing an AI-generated joke in every round and the audience has to identity this bot joke camouflaging as one penned by a real comic.
Members of the audience will be given voting sheets where they get to put down their guesses.
At the end of the game, the votes will be tabulated, and those who were able to identify the maximum number of bot jokes will get prizes.
The audience members can either play individually or in groups, just like in trivia nights, said Bannister. She expects a "fun evening", for she and her team of comics have already done live rehearsals and seen how the audience gets “stumped” when it comes to figuring out a comedian’s joke versus a bot’s joke.
The game show is Bannister's way of throwing light on the future of AI in humour — “I can see people using it in presentations to add a little punch."
"I've worked with Toastmasters to try and add some comedy to their speeches. And when I listen to their speeches, they basically steal a joke anyway, right? They steal a joke that somebody's done 110 times.”
In such cases, a bot would be a convenient tool to generate a joke, she said.
But otherwise, she added, “I think stand-up comedy needs to stay authentic and real.”
Spot the Bot will be a 90-minute interactive game show starting at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, July 21, at House of Comedy, 530 Columbia St. Food and beverage services will be offered throughout the show. Tickets are priced at $16 and can be bought on the House of Comedy website.
