How funny is ChatGPT? A comparison of human- and A.I.-produced jokes.

Can a large language model produce humor? Past research has focused on anecdotal examples of large language models succeeding or failing at producing humor. These examples, while interesting, do not examine ChatGPT's humor production abilities in ways comparable to humans' abilities, nor do they shed light on how funny ChatGPT is to the general public. To provide a systematic test, we asked ChatGPT 3.5 and laypeople to respond to the same humor prompts (Study 1). We also asked ChatGPT 3.5 to generate humorous satirical headlines in the style of The Onion and compared them to published headlines of the satirical magazine, written by professional comedy writers (Study 2). In both studies, human participants rated the funniness of the human and A.I.-produced responses without being aware of their source. ChatGPT 3.5-produced jokes were rated as equally funny or funnier than human-produced jokes regardless of the comedic task and the expertise of the human comedy writer.

High economic inequality is linked to greater moralization.

Throughout the 21st century, economic inequality is predicted to increase as we face new challenges, from changes in the technological landscape to the growing climate crisis. It is crucial we understand how these changes in inequality may affect how people think and behave. We propose that economic inequality threatens the social fabric of society, in turn increasing moralization-that is, the greater tendency to employ or emphasize morality in everyday life-as an attempt to restore order and control. Using longitudinal data from X, formerly known as Twitter, our first study demonstrates that high economic inequality is associated with greater use of moral language online (e.g. the use of words such as "disgust", "hurt", and "respect'). Study 2 then examined data from 41 regions around the world, generally showing that higher inequality has a small association with harsher moral judgments of people's everyday actions. Together these findings demonstrate that economic inequality is linked to the tendency to see the world through a moral lens.