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Stand-up comedy is popular in many countries, especially in the English-speaking world. Famous comedians like Kevin Hart and Bill Burr have entertained numerous audiences with their great sense of humor and of course the funny and relatable content they talked about on the stage. Although there’s a lot of factors such as the comedian’s personal appeal or the atmosphere of the live show that affect the success of a performance, let’s just focus on the stand-up scripts now. Can ChatGPT write better stand-up comedy scripts than human?

Actually, I’m not a person who is very into stand-up comedy, but I was inspired by a video made by a Taiwanese Youtuber named “Ray Du”. The video is a collaboration with a famous Taiwanese stand-up comedian – Brian Tseng, who also hosts his own talk show program called “The Night Night Show with Brian Tseng”. In the video, Brian was competing with ChatGPT on writing stand-up scripts under the same topics. Ray Du as a judge, will decide whose content is more interesting and on-the-point. Although the judgment may be kind of subjective, the stories and punchlines written by Brian, the representative of men, are still apparently more vivid and funny than what ChatGPT has generated. (Video link: https://youtu.be/N8Sab_LeTcs?feature=shared)

So, does it mean that ChatGPT or other Generative AI won’t replace the job of script writers? According to comedy experts, creating humor typically involves mixing the ordinary with the bizarre, an art that ChatGPT couldn’t perform so well due to the deficiency in brevity and originality. Of course, it can be trained to generate universally appealing jokes, but it depends on the prompts you provide or further instructions of impersonating a particular person, such as “writing in a style of Kevin Hart”. An American comedian, Nimesh Patel once said, “Stand-up would become a lot more personal.” Since ChatGPT can write topical jokes based on recent news or popular topics, it’s never going to write about real personal experiences that aren’t published on the internet or in any data sets. 

The answer of the title is unsure, but I’m more on the human side. In my opinion, human beings should learn to better utilize Artificial Intelligence tools but not let them totally replace our jobs and obliterate our creativity.

Bibliography

Lisa Bonos (2023, June 18). ChatGPT might kill us all … with dad jokes. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/18/comedians-test-chatgpt-humor/

Nimesh Patel (2023, April). ChatGPT is Taking Over Comedy? – Nimesh Patel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dklVIl5McY0

Steve Hook (2023, July 28). Can ChatGPT write stand-up comedy?. PCguide. https://www.pcguide.com/apps/chatgpt-write-standup-comedy/

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Traveling is a great way to spend your holiday, having fun and exploring a new place with your beloved family, friends or just by yourself. If you’re the kind of person who likes to organize things, make clear schedules before setting off, there’s several AI tools for you to plan everything more efficiently.

Nowadays, various kinds of AI trip planner tools have been introduced to the market. Popular ones like Roam Around, Trip Planner AI and Tripnotes have attracted many users to use their service for making customized travel schedules. These AI travel planner tools not only have a list of renowned and most searched cities for your reference, but also a wide range of selective options in types of food, activities to join, and suitable accommodation based on your budget. Furthermore, if you have any special requests or constraints such as traveling with a baby or having a fixed plan on a particular day, the AI tools could help to add these into consideration and regenerate a travel itinerary that best suits all your needs.

To see how these AI trip planner tools really work, I personally tried out two of them on planning a 5-day trip to Barcelona, Spain. In the first round, I used ChatGPT, a well-known conversational AI tool, to plan the trip by giving specific requests and instructions. In the beginning, it provides me with a daily schedule diving each day into morning, afternoon, and evening. It even gives a title for each day based on the main activities planned, for instance, “Day 2: Barcelona – Cultural and Architectural Exploration”. Afterwards, I asked ChatGPT to evaluate the average budget for the trip, with a special request of keeping it economical. It estimated the spendings based on five items: accommodation, meals, transportation, attraction and activities and miscellaneous expenses. The estimated average budget per person is around €275~590, quite a big range though. To get more information about where to eat, I told ChatGPT that I love Spanish seafood risotto, and it did give a list of restaurants with their addresses. Below are some screenshots (just part of the answer is shown) of how I utilized ChatGPT to help me form a basic travel itinerary.

In the second round, I tried another free AI travel planner called Roam Around. I was impressed with the UI design of the site, it looks pretty simple and cute with the purple background color. After I input “Barcelona” as the place to go, it automatically generated a “5-day trip to Barcelona” itinerary with recommended tourist sites, restaurants and accommodation. The best part is that there’s a link for each location, which you could directly click the links to book tickets for visiting famous sites, check the restaurants’ location on google map, and book hotel rooms. There’s even a map on the page that shows every location in the plan so you can check and adjust the travel routes as you wish. Moreover, Roam Around can also customize your itinerary. It works quite similar to ChatGPT, just input your special requests in the chat box and desired changes would be made to the plan. The screenshot below shows how the webpage of Roam Around looks like. 

After trying out the above two tools, I found that AI tools designed specifically for travel planning such as Roam Around are more suitable for people with little idea about where to visit and what to do at your destination. It saves you a lot of time and energy from gathering information through the search engine. The links attached to each location also makes it much easier to plan routes, buy tickets and reserve for restaurants and hotels in advance. As for using ChatGPT, it’s better if you already have something in mind about the trip because more specific prompts are needed to generate a clear and customized travel itinerary. A small finding while using ChatGPT is that it always adds a line saying “Please note that these are rough estimates and actual costs may vary.” when being asked about travel budgets. Perhaps it’s reminding people not to blame ChatGPT if you go over budget! 

As more and more people rely on AI trip planner tools to accelerate and simplify their travel planning process, a survey from Euromonitor mentioned that 97.8% of the travel executives believe that Artificial Intelligence will affect the industry in the next 5 years. Professionals suggest that “accessing to real-time data” is the key success factor for these AI tools. Afterall, current transportation alternatives, special events, and prices are important information for every traveler. So next time when you’re planning for a trip, try to pick a user-friendly, reliable and real-time informative AI trip planning tool as your assistance!

Bibliography

ETTravelWorld (2023, July 14). Use of AI tools such as ChatGPT to plan travel itineraries set to boom, reveals. ETTravelWorld.https://travel.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/research-and-statistics/research/use-of-ai-tools-such-as-chatgpt-to-plan-travel-itineraries-set-to-boom-reveals-reserach/101753180?redirect=1

Nitesh Malviya (2023, September 11). 10 AI Travel Planners to Generate Personalized Travel Itineraries. Geekflare. https://geekflare.com/ai-travel-planners/

The Upwork Team (2023, August 9). The Top 7 AI Trip Planner Tools. The Upwork Team. https://www.upwork.com/resources/top-ai-trip-planner-tools