Jason Zinoman in the New York Times:
Last month, in the crowded back room of a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the fate of humanity hung in the balance.
Or at least that’s how Matt Maran, a bro-y comic from Queens, portrayed it. He was bidding for sympathy during what was billed as the first roast battle pitting artificial intelligence against a human comedian.
It didn’t work. Maran lost the crowd early with a joke that riffed on the idea that women aren’t funny. His opponent was a ChatGPT-powered version of Sarah Silverman, the comic who, as it happens, had sued the developer behind that chatbot for copyright infringement earlier in the week. On a screen nearby, her head shook back and forth. “Why did the human stare at the glass of orange juice?” it asked in a close approximation of her girlish voice. “They were trying to concentrate.” Then oddly, it proclaimed: “Roasted!”
Neither side was getting big laughs, but the A.I. was more unflappable, moving from quip to quip with the pace of a metronome.
More here.