The jokes AI won’t tell | Jena Friedman

Artificial intelligence is really changing my industry. That’s partly what last year’s writers’ strike was about: putting limits on the use of AI as it pertains to TV and film. And if there's anyone in here under 25, TV and film -- (Laughter) are like TikTok, but you get paid for it. (Laughter) Thankfully, we won that strike. (Cheers and applause) Yes, our win was as effective at protecting the careers of human writers from AI as pouring water on a laptop. (Laughter) The future for television writers is so bleak, it has inspired me to get back into stand-up. (Laughter) Which is why I'm here -- (Laughter) at TED. I have been told before that some of my stand-up comedy is like a TED Talk, from mean people on the internet. (Laughter) But at least they didn't call me fat. (Laughter) Being a woman online is fun. A lot of my friends are really afraid of artificial intelligence right now. Sorry, a lot of my male friends are really afraid of AI. (Laughter) My female friends have other, more frivolous concerns, like getting home safely. But my male friends -- (Laughter) are so scared of robots. (Laughter) And I get it. I've seen "Ex Machina." If you haven't seen it, "Ex Machina" is a dystopian sci-fi horror movie about a sentient robot who has to flirt with her captor to escape her prison, which is pretty much every woman's first job. (Laughter) How is it a horror movie? I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when the director pitched it. Was he just like, "Picture your worst nightmare -- Your sex robot becomes conscious.” (Laughter) "And then decides she doesn't want to have sex with you." And all the men in the room are like, "Oh, the horror. No, that can happen? Take my money. We have to make sure that doesn't happen." (Laughter) That's how movies get made in Hollywood. (Laughter) So maybe AI won't be so bad for my industry. Regardless, you should feel lucky to see a person up here, because in five years, it will be a robot. You're saying "two"? Cool. In two years, it'll be a robot, and you'll all be laughing at him. Yes, it'll be a male robot. "Are female robots funny?" Not in two years. (Laughter) They're going to need another 10. (Laughter) That male robot, he'll be so funny to you. You'll be like, "Oh, my God, he really gets me." Yeah, he does, because he's data-mining you. (Laughter) You might not like all of my content, but it's because I'm protecting your privacy. (Laughter) I'm not listening to your conversations when your phone is on airplane mode. I'm not trying to sell you stuff when you're at your most vulnerable. But that robot comic will be. And you won't even care, because that's how parasocial relationships with celebrities work these days, even when they're robots. He could get away with anything. That robot comic could be in a green room, pulling out his plug in front of nonconsenting women. (Laughter) And you’d be like, “Wow, that’s so lifelike. Here's a Grammy." (Laughter) (Laughter and applause) Thanks. I censored that last bit so that you'll share this link with your kids. (Laughter) The theme of TED2025 is "Humanity Reimagined," which sounds like a euphemism ChatGPT came up with for all of us being replaced by machines. (Laughter) I’m not a techno-pessimist. I'm just a person with a human brain. And I'm a little scared by how quickly AI is progressing. "But, Jena, think of all the great things AI will do for humanity. It could lower carbon emissions, by killing all the humans." (Laughter) Is that a joke? I don't know. I don't know. Some of the people in this room would know better than I do. Are the robots going to kill us? (Laughter) Uh. Um. (Laughter) If you work in this space and you can't answer that with a definitive no, then maybe we should slow it down a notch. Take a few weeks off, like a fired and then rehired federal employee under DOGE. (Laughter) Either way, I'm not that worried about my stand-up comedy being replaced by AI, because my stand-up comedy is not that profitable. (Laughter) Case in point, I've been doing this for over 15 years, and none of you know who I am. (Laughter) No machines are coming for my abortion jokes. (Quiet laughter) (Laughter) And believe me, I've tried. OK, so here's a conversation I had with ChatGPT. It's very brief, don't worry, it only melted one iceberg. (Quiet laughter) (Laughter) I say, "Hi, ChatGPT!" Exclamation point. You got to be nice to them, because they're going to kill us. "Can you write me an abortion joke?" (Robotic voice) "I aim to keep things lighthearted and respectful." "So, no?" (Robotic voice) "I get that you are asking for something specific." It's fine. I'll just ask DeepSeek. (Laughter) And if anyone's curious, DeepSeek will totally write you an abortion joke ... But only if it's a girl. (Groans and laughter) (Cheers and applause) As some of you may have gathered, I do have a lot of abortion jokes. The best thing about abortion jokes is that no one tries to steal them. They are like the unwanted children of jokes. (Groans and laughter) I shouldn't have followed the pediatrician. (Laughter) (Laughter and applause) In a sense, it's the abortion jokes that make us human. (Laughter) Metaphorically speaking, they don't even have to be jokes. They could just be our idiosyncrasies, our peccadilloes and other SAT words. Our raw, authentic, unfiltered selves, that might not always be likable, relatable or profitable. Those are the things that separate us from machines. For now. When all of our TED Talks get fed into machine-learning algorithms, robots may evolve to understand why someone might say the word "abortion" in a talk, despite the fact that it could alienate 50 percent of people watching, even though it shouldn’t, because it’s just health care. But -- (Cheers and applause) But until they do, these are the things we should be embracing and cultivating as artificial intelligence evolves to get better at everything. It might just be our abortion jokes. Again, I'm just speaking metaphorically. It's a weird metaphor, but it's uniquely mine. It might just be our metaphorical abortion jokes that are all we have left. That said, in the near future, nobody in America will know what "abortion" means, because it will be outlawed in all 50 states. I'm sorry, 51 states, I forgot to include Canada. I've now turned this TED talk into a walking example of why TED is probably going to book a robot comedian instead of a human one as soon as they possibly can. Thank you so much, I'm Jena Friedman, have a good night. (Cheers and applause)