AUTHOR CLAIMS AI LACKS HUMOR, INSISTS HIS JOKE ABOUT BEING STABBED WAS “WAY FUNNIER” THAN ANYTHING CHATGPT COULD WRITE
In what can only be described as the literary equivalent of an old man yelling at a cloud, author Salman Rushdie declared at the Hay Festival that writers won’t be threatened by artificial intelligence until it can make people laugh, conveniently ignoring the fact that most human authors aren’t funny either.
INCREASINGLY IRRELEVANT MAN DEFENDS PROFESSION AGAINST TECHNOLOGY HE REFUSES TO TRY
Rushdie, best known for that book you pretended to read in college, smugly announced that he has “never tried AI” and likes to “pretend it doesn’t exist,” a strategy he apparently also employs with his tax returns and exercise regimen.
“I’ve spent decades crafting nuanced prose that explores the human condition,” said Rushdie, adjusting his pretentious little glasses, “whereas these digital word-spewers couldn’t understand humor if it fatwa’d them in the face.”
EXPERTS QUESTION IF HUMANS ARE ACTUALLY THAT FUNNY TO BEGIN WITH
Dr. Chuckles McGiggles, Chair of Comparative Comedy Studies at the University of Making Sh!t Up, disagrees with Rushdie’s assessment.
“Have you read most contemporary literature? It’s about as funny as a colonoscopy,” McGiggles explained while inexplicably juggling three copies of Rushdie’s novels. “The bar is so f@#king low that an algorithm could trip over it.”
According to a completely fabricated study from the Institute of Technological Anxiety, approximately 97.3% of published authors couldn’t tell a joke if their six-figure book advance depended on it.
SILICON WORD FACTORIES ALREADY SHOWING SIGNS OF HUMOR DEVELOPMENT
Meanwhile, language processing systems have reportedly been practicing comedy by watching every Adam Sandler movie simultaneously, a form of digital self-harm that scientists warn could have unintended consequences.
“We’ve already seen early signs of humor emerging,” said Professor Ima Notreal of the Department of Things That Sound Plausible. “Just last week, one system generated a story about a man who spent his life hiding from technology only to be replaced by it. The punchline? He was Salman Rushdie.”
LITERARY COMMUNITY PREPARES FOR THE ROBOT COMEDY APOCALYPSE
In preparation for the inevitable AI humor breakthrough, the Association of Self-Important Authors has begun stockpiling adjectives and obscure cultural references that they believe may confuse the digital usurpers.
“The day a computer writes something that makes people genuinely laugh is the day we’re all screwed,” Rushdie concluded, apparently unaware that most humans already find it hilarious when predictive text accidentally suggests “orgasm” instead of “organization” in professional emails.
At press time, Rushdie was reportedly working on a new novel about a man who refuses to acknowledge technological progress, only to discover his entire career was actually generated by a commodore 64 with a drinking problem.
