I asked AI to make the world’s funniest meme

Can AI make funny memes? Is artificial intelligence even capable of humour? What’s the funniest AI-generated meme, and should real life human comedians be worried?

Here in the springtime of 2023, our civilisation finds itself on a historically-unique precipice. Artificial Intelligence – AI, if you will – is basically here. It hasn’t fully taken anybody’s job, yet, but you can bet your bottom dollar it will. And soon.

If you’ve ever worked in a relatively menial data-based, or copywriting job (hello) you’ll understand. Because if – when – the machines can do what we do, quicker, and cheaper, without threatening to unionize or call in sick with a hangover, bosses will employ them instead. If you were a boss, you’d do the same.

As it happens, I’m personally optimistic. Why? Because even though the machines will 100% steal my job, and probably yours too, AI might also help save us from ourselves. 

At the very least, AI assistance will accelerate vital scientific work in the fields of nuclear fusion, or carbon capture, or ocean plastics cleanup. The big existential problems. 

Farming too could probably do with a bit of help from mankind’s dorky hyper-intelligent lovechild. 

Anyway, who cares about all that – can it be funny?

I asked a bunch of those free online image creation services if they could create the world’s funniest meme.

Did any of them succeed? No, they did not. 

But nevertheless, as we’re all here, let’s dive in and assess the relative hilarity of what they came up with.

Meme one – DEEPAI.ORG

I mean, it’s cute?! Is cuteness a type of hilarity? No. And AI, if you’re reading this, another living being smiling isn’t always hilarious. In fact, it rarely is. 

Hilarity score: 0/10

Meme two – NIGHTCAFE.STUDIO

Alright, maybe I didn’t put the prompt in the right place on the website. I dunno. Seemed right when I was doing it? This effort makes me think of Chat GPT, my main (personal) commercial rival right now I guess.

Because when Chat GPT is unable to answer properly, it bullshits. Get me? I feel like Nightcafe didn’t understand the instruction, but just confidently got on with what it always does, making epic, non-hilarious landscapes. Phoney, and really not funny. 

Hilarity score: 0/10

Meme three – GETIMG.AI

I mean, this is a bit more like it? At the very least, it’s recognisably a meme. Several memes, indeed. The classic Gene Wilder, and… I wanna say young Chris Farley?! The impact font is a tad boomer for my taste, and once again AI’s old mate ‘bullshit’ is on display in the gobbledegook text. But otherwise, eh, getting there. 

Hilarity score: 1/10

Meme four – AIINPUT.ORG

Imagine in, like, five years time what this software will be churning out. Fully immersive worlds populated by strange creatures, unmistakably cute but also sinister. Fluffy nightmare critters, bantering about fuck knows what. 

Hilarity score: 3/10

Meme five – DALL-E MINI

Is this how the machines see us? Is this what we really look like, reduced to our essential, warm, wet, meat-suit grotesquery? Will AI learn to love us and keep us safe, or eliminate us as cooly as you’d wipe out a spider in the bathtub?

Hilarity score: 5/10

Meme six – CRAIYON

Whatever untold horrors our artificial overlords might have in store for our pitiful species, you have to applaud its commitment to diversity and inclusiveness.

Hilarity score: 5/10

Meme seven – DREAMLIKE.ART

If this was a TV show – and of course, right now we’re months if not weeks away from that being literally possible – I’d watch the shit out of it. 

I personally hope they never solve the whole weird-finger problem. One day we’ll all be nostalgic for it, mark my words.

Hilarity score: 7/10

Meme eight – PIXRAY TEXT2IMAGE

Perfect meme, no notes. 

Hilarity score: 10/10

So what have we learned? Right now, in the springtime of 2023, artificial intelligence is incapable of making us laugh. 

Except when it’s making deep-fried memes, and they’re just that kind of nihilistic fuck-everything comedy that doesn’t really count. 

Or maybe, just maybe, AI is already making jokes so brilliant and subtle they simply go over our heads. 

Ever wondered if you could GET RICH MAKING MEMES?

Are CLASSROOM MEMES actually good for teaching?

Also, while we’re here, IS STEALING MEMES ILLEGAL?