LLMs, Humor & Play

Can an LLM write a joke? Well yes and no. Many people argue if an LLM can really do perform speech acts like assertion because there is no intentionality and/or Theory of Mind behind its output. So if a joke is something created in order to make someone laugh, the LLM would have to understand and intend that, which many critics would rightfully argue that it’s unable to do so, at the very least right now. However in a purely formal way, yes it can output something that looks like a joke (but still lacking something like taste), which can even make you laugh (although I cannot find any randomized control human-judge trial of human vs LLM generated jokes). The next question that we then have to ask if “What makes something funny?” There are a lot of competing theories, but ultimately (to me) what is funny is whatever makes you laugh1. So really, by evaluating it (subconsciously perhaps) and finding something funny makes it funny. This means that humor may be fundamentally goal-oriented,…