Karen Hobbs was more worried about this specific gig than usual. Being a well-known circuit comedian, she is used to the harsh stand-up comedy scene in the UK. It’s renowned for being wacky, varied, and devoid of sympathy chuckles. Hobbs has worked in some of the harshest spaces in the country, including the back rooms of small-town bars and large theaters in London. Even in the despised competition circuit, where the cruel audience votes in a gladiatorial popularity contest to determine which quip is the funniest, she has achieved victory.
But Hobbs was about to do something very different on this Thursday evening in late June, above the Covent Garden Social Club bar in Central London. Instead of bringing her typical repertoire, the AI platform ChatGPT had prepared a stand-up routine for her to perform. Seeing three comedians perform their genuine, personal material was the most terrifying part.
After only two years of development, OpenAI’s chatbot has gone from being a niche product for tech enthusiasts to becoming the first platform that actually makes AI usable for everyone. Before AI became widely used, it had already started to terrorize educational institutions, rob freelance copywriters of their livelihoods, and flood social media with lazy and occasionally unpleasant content. Certain scientists caution against a possible AI-driven
