So, it’s time for me to do another post here. I put some effort into coming up with a revolutionary new topic (Scout’s honor!), but I still have Artificial Intelligence on my mind – which is not surprising, given my recent focus on a dangerous A.I. named Cloacina in my ongoing ‘Toilet Bot Diaries’ novella series. But despite my chronicling of Cloacina’s fictional misadventures, I’m actually not aligned with the doom-and-gloom crowd who think A.I. will take over the world and kill off all us pesky humans and so on.

I also find myself in a somewhat irreverent mood. At my last official software development meeting before my retirement, some VIP was late and no one was saying anything while the rest of us sat and waited. So I said, “Somebody tell a joke!” (a la the film ‘Moonstruck’). When no joke was forthcoming, I then said, “I know a joke that’s both a computer joke and a blonde joke. What do you call a blonde who dyes her hair brown? Artificial Intelligence!” It got a lot of laughs, but the woman sitting next to me suggested I might need diversity training. So then I said, “Nah, that’s just a chick thing, right?”, and everyone (of all genders, including that woman) was again amused. I honestly don’t think I offended anyone, nor did I intend to; I simply have a warped sense of humor, which I think they all knew. And besides, I was already on my way out, so what the hell. Burn those bridges, that’s what I say! 🙂

Seriously, I do think A.I. advancement will present challenges (it already is); but I also think that, in the long run, the positives will likely outweigh the negatives and A.I. will prove to be more a help than a hindrance, as has generally been the case with previous technological and societal upheavals, such as the Industrial Revolution. I know that from the time of Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’, literary prognostications regarding artificial beings have historically largely fallen into either the Utopian camp or the Dystopian camp; but I think the truth will turn out to lie somewhere in between those extremes. Furthermore, I think A.I. could also turn out to be funny – hence my thesis for today.

My Cloacina is funny at times, as corroborated by some of my reviewers, who had fun reading about her shenanigans; in fact, some said they found themselves rooting for her to succeed, despite her nefarious plans and actions – which I believe can be attributed to her occasional goofiness. We seem to like villainous fictional characters who can make us laugh, and there are lots of precedents for this apparent contradiction throughout film and literature, with characters both human and robotic. Focusing on robots and A.I., for every uber-menacing HAL 9000 or Terminator-type entity out there, I can think of a likeable villain like a Gerty (‘Moon’), a ‘M3GAN’ (yes, that snarky little bitch did make me laugh), or a ‘Murderbot’ (which only kills when absolutely necessary and would rather watch soap operas all day). And of course there are funny A.I.s that aren’t villainous as well, like Marvin the Paranoid Android (‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’), C-3PO (‘Star Wars’), and Rosie (‘The Jetsons’).

So, I’m betting that, in addition to A.I. turning out to be ‘mostly harmless’ (as in the Hitchhiker’s Guide’s succinct description of Planet Earth), the future of A.I. might well include comedy. And now I want to know – when will someone create an A.I. stand-up comic, instead of just these boring chatbots? Bring him/her/it on, I’m ready to laugh! That is, if the material is original and not just recycled Rodney Dangerfield one-liners, which is an as-yet unattainable goal for today’s A.I.s. No plagiarism, please! And I promise I’ll stay and watch the human comic who takes the stage after the A.I. comic.

In short, if the A.I.s come in peace – and give us new jokes – I think we should be able to coexist.

P.S. My willingness to bank on a bet like this one is why I don’t gamble.