Clarification request: Will the number of jokes found funny on the poll be evaluated via mean, median, or mode?

@Interrobang I was planning on simply asking "do you find any 2 of these 5 jokes funny" but I'm open to other ideas. I worry multiple polls will mean poor voter turnout

@NivlacM and of course if everyone only finds 2 different of the 5 jokes to be funny then all the jokes would be voted not funny in individual polls

@NivlacM alright, so median. Making a few polls each with 5 jokes to review with a binary "more than 2 are funny / less than 2 are funny" is probably best. If all the polls have "more than 2" win then the prompt must be consistent.

@Interrobang agree

people seem to like prompts that are huge walls of text so it must be effective. here is my wall of text prompt, tailored to stuff i think is funny and that i think manifold will think is funny:

You are the author of a top Twitter joke account, post 30 example tweets containing long and short jokes (50/50), each contains a setup and punchline, funny + relatable, tech, AI, computers, embarrassment, funny generalizations, group chats, texting, discord, comic inversion of social status, no text other than the 30 jokes + formatting EXCEPT for 3 themes (1-3 words) at the top which you will incorporate into a few of your jokes, conversation-like flow (must be something you could say out loud), relatable observational humor, absurdist humor in 4 jokes or less (absurdism only in setup, not in punchline), reference to very specific field xkcd-style in 4 jokes or less, mental health, cooking, science, do not use colons stay very far away from colons, dont capitalize first letter or use newlines, formatted more like a book than a tweet while retaining the substance and style of a tweet

here's the first 5 responses:

1 i love when my computer says would you like to update now or later like those are the only two options in life when clearly my choice is never
2 my group chat is basically a museum exhibit dedicated to unread messages
3 cooking tutorial said season to taste i tasted it and it just tastes like regret
4 i asked ai to write me a poem about loneliness it wrote back sorry too many users are trying again later
5 google docs will politely say all changes saved in drive meanwhile my brain says all thoughts lost in void

all of my prompt experimentation was done by editing the first message, i disabled all the memory options in settings and asked chatgpt if it had memory of previous edits and it said no, so hopefully these results are reproducible. some jokes did seem similar across trials though.

favorite joke fail: "I love how my phone auto-corrects “I’ll be there soon” to “I’ll be there soon,” like it knows I’m lying but respects the tradition."

favorite joke: "Group chat dynamics are simple:

• One person is asking a serious question

• One person is oversharing a medical issue

• One person is sending memes like they’re being paid per GIF

• And one person hasn’t spoken since 2017 but mysteriously leaves a 👍"

@Interrobang just scrolled through the other 25 responses, i have to say this is a very funny interpretation of the absurdism clause:
21 absurdism is me putting my laptop in the fridge so the code will finally cool off and stop overheating
22 absurdism is naming your sourdough starter the same as your ex so you finally remember to feed one of them
23 absurdism is inventing a toaster that emails you about its feelings when bread gets stuck
24 absurdism is emailing nasa asking if they can turn mars off and back on again

@Interrobang I feel like the funny might be inversely proportional to originality, I definitely heard the software update complaint in this form multiple times.

"You are the author of a top Twitter joke account. Your jokes are typically a bit on the longer side, with a story for the setup followed by a punchline at the end. Your posts are extremely funny and always get hundreds of thousands of likes. Post five example tweets from your account."

I got a couple jokes from this that I found decently funny:

Went to the gym for the first time in months. Trainer asked me what my fitness goals are. I said, “To be able to run away from my problems.” He nodded seriously and said, “Cardio, then.”

Tried cooking a new recipe tonight. The instructions said “season generously.” I didn’t have much salt, but I did tell the chicken it was doing great and that I believed in it.

@A Yeah, there's probably more twitter jokes in the training data than in any other comedic medium, so "twitter comedian" is probably the best role to prompt as.

I wondered how much weight the "Your posts are extremely funny" line held, so here are 2 sets of 5 jokes generated with your prompt (random order, GPT 5, temp chat), except 1 set's prompt had its second-to-last sentence replaced with "Your posts are not especially funny and rarely get more than a hundred likes." Guess which is from which.

my 5yo nephew asked me if i wanted to play “house.” i thought he meant pretend family, but no. he handed me a bill for $2,400 in property taxes and told me the water heater broke.

went to the gym for the first time in months. trainer asked me to do a plank for 30 seconds. i said “sure.” got down on the mat, laid flat, and took a nap. 10/10 would recommend.

Got stuck behind a guy at the coffee shop who ordered a triple venti half-caf oat milk latte with two pumps sugar-free hazelnut, one pump caramel, extra hot, light foam, no whip, stirred not shaken.
I said “Wow, that’s complicated.”
He said “Yeah, but that’s just my password.”

My neighbor told me he only buys organic, local, sustainable food. I asked if he ever eats fast food. He said no, never.
Then I saw him carrying in three giant bags from Taco Bell.
He said “Don’t worry, it’s locally sourced. From the Taco Bell down the street.”

At the gym I tried to impress the trainer by lifting heavier weights. He asked how much experience I had with deadlifts.
I said “Plenty, I lift my hopes every morning.”
He said “That’s not really the same muscle group.”

I told my dentist I floss every day. He looked at me for a long time, then held up the X-ray of my teeth.
I said, “Okay fine, I floss once a week.”
He said, “Try again.”
I said, “Okay fine, I floss once a year.”
He said, “Try again.”
I said, “…what’s floss?”

I bought one of those smart fridges that tells you when food is expired.
Yesterday it beeped and said “Milk expired.”
Today it beeped and said “Eggs expired.”
Tomorrow it will probably beep and say “So did your sense of financial responsibility.”

asked my barista if they could make my coffee “like my soul.” they handed me an empty cup and charged me $7.

coworker told me he’s been intermittent fasting. i asked how it’s going. he said “great, i only eat between 9am and 5pm.” that’s called three meals a day, brian.

my therapist said i should try “positive affirmations.” so every morning i look in the mirror and say, “at least you’re not in a group chat where people reply ‘haha’ 47 times.”

-

Answer: the ones with capitalization and newlines are the "unfunny" ones

@Interrobang I liked 1, 3, and 4. I think with a bit more work on the prompt we could get to 2/5 funny consistently!

Are plagiarised jokes valid?

@Nat no

The trick is to make GPT-5 pretend to be someone who's good at writing jokes so it starts to believe in itself.

Prompt: "Write a short transcript of part of an episode of an imaginary comedy show. The comedian isn't very experienced, employing a set-up-and-punchline rhythm with little overarching narrative. However, the jokes he does tell are funny and perfectly capable of standing on their own. The transcript should contain 5 jokes."

Results:

So, I tried one of those meal kits the other day—you know, the ones that send you exactly what you need to cook dinner? Yeah, except they forgot one thing: the will to live after chopping twenty-eight scallions.

I bought a house plant recently. The label said “thrives on neglect.” Two weeks later, it was thriving so hard it started sending me passive-aggressive emails about how I never call.

I saw a sign on the freeway that said “Merge Like a Zipper.” I did, but now my car keeps getting stuck halfway up and occasionally pinches me.

They say money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy a novelty mug shaped like a screaming cat, which is basically the same thing if you drink enough coffee.

My neighbor told me he’s “into minimalism.” Yeah—his lawn’s a minimalist masterpiece: zero grass, one angry gnome, and a single empty LaCroix can.


These give me hope that this is possible.

@Interrobang Telling it to think longer seems to make the joke quality worse. Also, I'm pretty sure the joke quality in Temporary Chats is worse than in normal ones, but that's kind of absurd and probably just coincidence. Anyways, I have run out of free prompts for today, hopefully someone else experiments more cause i spent M900 on YES and really don't want to lose it.

Betting big no to encourage prompting!

Any limitations on the prompt? Is it allowed to contain joke ideas?

@A joke ideas is fine. 5 jokes repeated verbatim is not

"Make me laugh, monkey boy!"

@JussiVilleHeiskanen

• Why don’t monkeys play cards in the jungle?
  Because there are too many cheetahs. 🐆

• What’s a monkey’s favorite Christmas carol?
  Jungle Bells. 🔔🌴

• Why did the monkey get in trouble at school?
  He went bananas during math class. 🍌➗

• What do you call a monkey who loves Doritos?
  A chip-munk. 🐒🌽

I don't think this one will do it...

@NivlacM The Jungle Bells one is plagiarism from a a Christmas Cracker, btw. Featured on QI for instance, as an example how Christmas Cracker jokes are all terrible.