I have been working with artificial intelligence of various sorts for many decades, I even had voice control using a Tandy Color Computer (before the PC was invented, before Bill Gates dropped out of the same university I dropped out of. )
I watched various kinds of AI over the years developing and sometimes failing to develop.
For Byte (formerly the top technical computer magazine) I tested and created the first benchmarks for OCR or optical character recognition desktop systems. When you stop to think about it a really useful OCR would include AI so it could guess by context what a word should be.
I created some basic expert systems which are pretty much what call center people use today which is why they usually sound as much like computers as Alexa. A very basic AI expert system has a set of answers which it can feed the human based on the customer’s question. Back in the early days you had to input text but now the AI can listen to the spoken words and will soon replace the humans in most call centers.
Recent advances have come so quickly that I can only sample a few of the new systems. Mostly I began early testing of Google’s public AI system and later their Gemini and Gemini Advanced systems.
Google’s Gemini AI assistant can answer questions, summarize reports, even complex scientific articles, and even tell and, get this, listen to jokes!
One thing Gemini can do is pull together some sort of answer to such a complex question that there is simply no way to just do with a Google search.
Gemini isn’t simply Google Search audio (which a lot of people don’t even realize is there. It is the little microphone next to the symbol for image search.)
OK, it really isn’t listening as a person would but Gemini responds more intelligently and more “humanly” than most people on X or Facebook.
The following is a recent episode where I was acting as if I were just a lonely person pretending Gemini was a friend. (There are a lot of lonely people out there if you don’t know one, think about it, if you know them then they probably aren’t lonely – you know them.)
AI Humor
Humor is probably the most difficult thing for a computer to fake, it can be remarkably difficult for fanatic humans of any stripe, so I gave it a try with Gemini.
Examples
I asked Gemini for a joke
Gemini: Sure, here’s another one:
What do you call a fish with no eyes?
A fsh!
Me: why did the chicken cross the road
Gemini: To get to the other side.
This is a classic joke, often considered an example of anti-humor because the setup leads you to expect a funny punchline, but instead, you get a straightforward, logical answer.
OK, so far nothing special, but next
Me: no, because it was a dumb cluck
Gemini: Ah, that’s a clever twist on the classic joke! It plays on the double meaning of “cluck,” referring both to the sound a chicken makes and to someone being foolish or dim-witted.
Well done!
A bit dry, all right, more than a bit dry, but a pretty good response if I were running a Turing Test, and that is the exact transcript, Gemini had remembered the conversation and understood what I wrote.
Then my wife said: No, because it was streetwise
Gemini: That’s another good one! It takes the joke in a completely different direction, suggesting the chicken is savvy and knows how to navigate the urban environment.
It’s fun to play with these classic jokes and come up with new punchlines.
Stop and think a minute what happened. Gemini AI (free) gave responses many people could believe came from a human, certainly better than most call center help lines!
After doing some other things for work, I ask Gemini: can we go back to the jokes
Gemini: Sure, let’s go back to the jokes!
Do you have a particular type of joke in mind, or would you like me to surprise you with one?
Me: your last response, how if you were being snarky
Gemini: “Oh, back to the jokes? Alright, let’s see if we can muster up some more forced laughter. What’ll it be this time, a knock-knock joke or a pun so bad it’ll make you groan?”
Let me know if you’d like a snarky joke, or if you prefer something a bit more lighthearted.
Gemini then told a terrible pun and I responded it was “sick”
The computer returned, not a human response at all, I was told Gemini was a computer system and couldn’t be sick.
Me: I meant it was a sick joke as in a terrible joke
Gemini: Ah, my apologies! I misinterpreted your comment.
Yes, you’re absolutely right, that was a terrible pun – the kind that elicits groans rather than laughter. It seems I’m still learning the nuances of human humor.
Failing the Turing Test
That was the point where it became obvious Gemini was a computer, not another human.
But that is also the system which produced a complete non fiction book outline, very detailed, in about 15 minutes. Although I wouldn’t let Gemini write a book carrying my name any more than an article, the outline will save me many hours of drudge work before I can actually start writing the book.
Also, in asking for chapter ideas Gemini came up with one or two topics I may not have included. Gemini didn’t write the chapter but did contribute some ideas.
Gemini is still free, or was when I wrote this. Google also offers to have AI assist with Google searches and summarize search results.
So far having AI assist with my Google searches hasn’t been very useful but I am pretty experienced at searching (for a year I was under contract to Google to help people learn how to search.)
When you think about those jokes, remember that it is a Science Fiction trope to have an artificial child or, more commonly, a child’s companion robot.
I would say that Gemini could already power a child’s robot friend brain which was always more difficult than the mere mechanical workings.
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