I almost left a wedding because a tech bro was being such an idiot. Here’s what happened.
Me: “AI will never write, tell stories jokes, as well as humans”
Tech Bro: “Prove it to me with data”
Me: “You can tell, we can all tell”
Tech Bro: “No you can’t, AI is getting better all the time, and will eventually tell better jokes than Kevin Hart”
Me: “No, it won’t, not now, not ever”
Tech Bro: “Okay let’s wait five years and see”
This conversation took place in 2021. It has been five years. AI can’t tell a joke, people hate AI content, Kevin Hart is a bigger star than ever. And yet there is an even bigger consortium of AI-pilled tech bros making the same argument. They had 5 years, and quite literally all the money in the world, and couldn’t make a joke better than Kevin Hart. Should we trust them to try again? I think no.
The reason is intangible excellence. The excellence in a craft you can feel when you see or hear something where you just know it was created by someone who perfected it. It cuts through in a way where you can just tell it is thoughtful. My high school english teacher told me the best example of this he’d ever heard when his brother-in-law described the worst meal he’d ever eaten by saying “It tasted like the inside of an outhouse smells” which you can immediately and vividly picture.
AI can try to reproduce this level of cleverness, it can try to emulate what someone with intangible excellence does, but it can’t. It’s pre-programmed in a certain way, and at best it’s always going to make last seasons’ jokes because it’s not happening in real time.
So if you feel like there’s no point in perfecting your craft as a writer, a content creator, a business owner sharing stories, ideas, and inspiration as a way to grow your business, take heart in knowing that even with 5 years and all the money in the world, AI cannot make a joke better than Kevin Hart.
