AI Ain't Funny
Be mean and vulgar to show you're a person.
I had to make a new website from scratch after choosing to move away from WIX. The new provider that I'm working with, Hostinger, has a lot of tools in their website builder app that are AI-powered. So you can have their AI generate text or even images for the website you're building.
I was recently contacted by someone setting up a new wedding vendor directory in Austin. When I went to check out the website there was a single entertainment provider: some douche holding a saxophone who I had never heard of. When I went to read his profile I got the sense that the text was AI-generated.
On Sunday nights I like to attend a comedy open mic at Creek and the Cave called Banana Phone. It's a roast/heckle mic. Open mic comedians, who are usually terrible, get one uninterrupted minute to share original material. Then the host rings a bell and a panel of 4+ comedians holding mics and seated in the front row start harassing the comedian on stage for four minutes. The crowd is also encouraged to join in on the beat-down.
When writing emails lately I've been intentionally picking slang words and short, direct phrases hoping to express my mood and person-ness to the recipient. The boiler plate paragraphs that AI generates are very boring to read and lack the humor, vulgarity, meanness, and nuance that normal-ass people can't help but express in their writing (like having an accent when talking). When I find AI-generated text on a website it makes me think less of the person responsible for that site. It makes me think that they're prioritizing content-churning and money over care and passion in their work. AI is being used to give the illusion of genuineness in opinions and reviews shared online and I think that's fucking evil.
On Sunday nights, when I go to Banana Phone, I like that the only thing that matters in that room is quickness and wit employed to crush anyone else who speaks up. What's funny is elusive and ever-changing but comedians can, through some really weird talent, know the right combination of properly-timed, spoken words that're going to work on the crowd. So power in that room, temporarily, is in the hands of the quickest and funniest person and money, education, fame, and other forms of status are meaningless.