AI can crack jokes but still doesn’t get your puns

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00:00AI can crack jokes, but still doesn't get your puns.

00:04We all laughed when AI started writing limericks and dad jokes that were technically jokes.

00:09But a new academic study has arrived to gently place its hand on our shoulder and say, we

00:14need to talk.

00:16And what it has to say isn't pretty.

00:18AI doesn't actually understand humor, it's just really good at pretending it does.

00:22The research paper, titled Pun Unintended LLMs and the Illusion of Humor Understanding,

00:28took a close look at how large language models like ChatGPT and Google's Gemini handle puns.

00:34Puns hinge on double meanings and sound-alike words that trigger that tiny, judgmental part

00:38of your brain.

00:39Turns out, while AI can produce a perfectly structured joke, it often has absolutely no

00:45clue why that joke is supposed to be funny.

00:48Puns work because of polysemy, meaning words can have multiple meanings, humans juggle that

00:52naturally.

00:53AI, it just sees patterns.

00:56Like a stand-up comic who memorized the rhythm of jokes without understanding the crowd,

01:00it delivers punchlines purely based on statistical vibes.

01:04To test this, the researchers did a little light trolling and built two test sets, Punny

01:08Pattern and Pun Break, that slightly altered real puns by swapping keywords.

01:14The sentence structure stayed the same, but the double meaning, and therefore the joke,

01:18was completely gone.

01:20Any human would instantly recognize that the joke was broken, yet models often still rated

01:24the ruined versions as funny because they resembled jokes they'd seen before.

01:28Why it matters.

01:30Writers, marketers, and presentation warriors leaning on AI for clever wordplay might ship

01:35puns that make no sense at all.

01:38And nothing kills a mood faster than a pun that doesn't even deserve a pity groan.

01:41The study argues that dumping more training data into these models won't fix the problem.

01:47To really get puns, AI needs deeper knowledge of sound and cultural context more than text

01:52prediction alone.

01:54Until then, AI might help you write code, emails, or even break up texts.

01:58But when it comes to crafting a truly eye-roll worthy pun, that embarrassing honor still belongs

02:03to humanity.

02:11To be continued...