However, lots of people seem to think that LLMs are good at writing related tasks, so I don’t think it’s inherently obvious that these tools suck at writing comedy in particular.

Who thinks that though ? That’s not an opinion i’ve seen anywhere except maybe LinkedIn influencers but these people have been writing bland, trite slop for 10 years now. They didn’t even wait for GPTs to do it for them.

I’m also not surprised that these models are terrible at writing comedy, because even at best of times I find their output bland, trite and crudely stripped of anything potentially divisive.

Sounds like we’re agreeing then ?

along with a really dubious claim that machines can’t tickle people for some reason

Haha yeah that’s not exactly a scientific statement but i mean… if a machine was poking your ribs do you think you’d have the tickle response ? Isn’t it mostly a social bonding thing ?