AI is already creeping into industries, taking jobs, and in my view making people more lazy. I can see where it might be useful - multimedia stuff, online content, helping to write some sketches. But for me, personally? There’s not a single part of my job I’d happily hand over to AI. Not because I’m some kind of noble artist, but because comedy, at least the kind I care about, is inherently personal.
My material for stand up comes from me, my experiences all concocted by my weird brain. If AI tried to write my jokes, I would like to think it just couldn’t have the same impact. Again, not to sound like a purist but in comedy don’t people respond to truth? It’s the authenticity, the awkward human moments that people can relate to, no? I just don’t see how AI could replicate that.
Of course some comedians have writers or get their jokes punched up, but again that’s a human to human thing. Do I care if other comedians use AI? I mean no... but I’d like to think it would be quite obvious and people would at least own up to it. If you’re not writing your own jokes, it's not preparing you for the element of improv you need in order to ride out certain situations in a sketch. On paper it might be equipping you well, but it’s not going to help you out if you bomb it live. As I have done many times!
Would I ever let AI be my agent? No. Again this comes back to the importance of the human element. My agents understand me and as a result help me get in front of the right people. It would be great if they could reach more people but ultimately people are going to respond much better to a person selling me than a bot.
Would I want AI analysing my sets? It would be helpful, and somewhat interesting to see the actual percentage breakdown of how much people laughed. But then again, I don’t if I actually want to know. You can probably tell by now I like to bury my head in the sand, but I also feel that there are some things you just don’t need to be so clearly detailed. Plus I do think you have a good general sense of when a show has bombed or gone well, you don’t need the precise analytics. It’s like you know in yourself if you've had a good or a bad night's sleep you don’t need to get to the nitty gritty of facts and figures. It just makes you obsessive.
To be fair, I’ve only dabbled with ChatGPT, so it wouldn’t really make sense for me to be championing it. And I would say I’m slightly ignorant about it. BUT it's fallible because it can’t know everything. For example, my Spotify algorithms are out of whack. My mum uses my Spotify sometimes and she likes Avicii, Spotify claims it knows my taste but it can't account for nuances like that. Not that I’m against Avicii.
Then there’s the bigger picture stuff, if AI replaces all the jobs, what are people meant to do all day? I like having work. I like feeling a sense of accomplishment. If AI is just out here doing everything for us, then what’s the point? Humans need struggle. We need failure. That’s where all the good stories come from. There is one thing I would be on board for, and that’s if AI could stop me from procrastinating. Some kind of feature that could physically remove my phone from my hands when I start scrolling instead of working. I would support that, but beyond that? Yeh it's a no from me.
To summarise, some things are just meant to be human. Memories, creativity, the sheer unpredictability of life. AI might be able to mimic those things, but it’ll never be them. Now that’s profound.
