What type of weather to Zombie's most like?

Cloudy with a chance of brain.

(inhales)

Hey guys, I'm Brent Rose, writer and sci-fi Seinfeld.

So we're living in the age of digital assistants.

Apple's got Siri, Google's got Assistant,

Microsoft has Cortana and Amazon has Alexa.

Not now.

So if you've ever been bored you've probably started

messing with your digital assistant

to see what kind of funny responses you can get.

All of these devices are chock full of jokes

so bad they'd make your dad look like Dave Chapelle.

But one of em's gotta be the funniest.

So we've devised a test:

we're going to assemble a stand up comedy routine

composed entirely of jokes from these four devices.

And then I'm going to take it to a stand up comedy club

here in LA and perform it in front of a live audience.

It's gonna suck.

A lot.

Alright, so I've assembled my digital writers room here.

Let's do this thing.

Siri, tell me a joke.

[Siri] What did one iphoness say to the other iphoness?

I used to know this one.

(exhales) Tell me another joke.

I can't. I always forget the punch line.

Okay, so as far as jokes go, Siri is absolutely terrible.

But she's more trained to have funny responses

to questions you ask her.

For example, Siri what's your favorite animal?

[Siri] I don't really have one

on this planet.

Ha ha.

So Apple didn't do too well there,

let's see if Microsoft has an answer.

Cortana is Microsoft's digital assistant,

it's available on Window's phones, Xbox, Windows 10,

and now as a stand alone app for androids and iphonesss.

Cortana, tell me a joke.

[Cortana] Why do scuba divers

always fall backwards out of the boat?

If they fell forwards they'd still be in the boat.

This is already better than Apple's.

I mean it's not good, but it's better than Apple's.

Tell me a joke.

[Cortana] There are two types of people in the world.

Those who need closure.

I like that.

So let's give Google Assistant a try.

Assistant is in the new androids devices

and it's also in the Google home system

and possible coming to Chrome some time soon, too.

Okay Google, tell me a joke.

[Assistant] As a golfer, it's always smart

to wear two pairs of pants.

You know, in case you get a hole in one.

Tell me another one.

Why do fish live in salt water?

Because pepper water makes them sneeze.

(laughs)

And lastly, this is Alexa.

This is Amazon's assi--

Amazon's assistant that's in the Echo products

and coming to more things soon.

Alexa, tell me a joke.

[Alexa] What to lemons drink when they get sick?

A lemonade.

Want to hear a dirty joke?

A boy fell in some mud.

How about a clean joke?

He had a shower.

Neither of those are jokes.

Okay, let's get a few more, then hit the club.

[Assistant] What do clouds wear under their shorts?

Thunderpants.

[Alexa] A ham sandwich walks into a bar--

Aw.

[Cortana] Did you hear about the pig

who lost his voice?

[Assistant] What do you call an empty jar of cheese wiz?

[Siri] A woodchuck would chuck as much as a woodchuck

could chuck if a wood chuck could chuck--

(groans)

Okay, so we've got the best jokes these things have to offer

and oh my god, this is going to be so brutal.

Okay so we're at the Chatterbox

and I am about to do stand-up comedy

for the first time in my life.

This is my stand-up comedy uniform: plaid.

On the car ride over, I literally cut and copied and pasted

all of the best jokes from our four devices,

we've got about seven for each.

We're gonna listen to laugh duration,

laugh intensity, we have a decibel meter,

so hopefully we'll get some real data here.

This is a pretty widely known open mic night

for stand up comedians and I do not belong here so...

So tell me a little about this place.

This is the Chatterbox, the open mic,

this thing right here that you're at,

is one of the best open-mics in LA.

Have you done stand-up before?

No, never, I've always been afraid of bombing

and I feel like I'm guaranteed to bomb.

Do you know what that feels like, to bomb?

No.

It's worse than any physical pain,

and I'm not kidding when I tell you that.

That did not make me feel any better at all.

I'm afraid I'm just getting straight booed off the stage.

He's got a gong back there.

Okay are you guys ready for your next comedian?

K, right now give it up for Brent Rose.

(applause)

Hm.

Uh, I stayed up all night trying to figure out

where the sun went.

And then it dawned on me.

Uh, why do scuba divers always fall backwards

out of the boat?

It's cause if they fell forward they'd still be

in the boat.

(weak laughter)

A ham sandwich walks into a bar,

the bartender says, Sorry we don't serve food here.

(weak laughter)

Uh-huh, uh-huh, good, good.

So we have to address the elephant in the room here.

These artificial intelligence assistants

are not writing these jokes themselves.

These are all canned responses.

Computer scientists are very much working on AI

that can come up with jokes,

and some even believe it will be the final stage

in making a truly life-like AI.

What steps are these companies taking to try to make

these devices funnier?

Google hired writers from Pixar and The Onion

to try to make Assistant more life-like.

In 2013, Apple posted a job listing looking for writers

for Siri.

Microsoft hired screen writers, journalists and even a poet

to give Cortana a human touch.

And in addition to having a bunch of curated jokes,

with Alexa you can install whole libraries

of dad jokes, dirty jokes, even jokes directly from Reddit.

For this test we wanted an even playing field

so we've got all four devices performing as they would

right out of the box.

I told the doctor I broke my arm in two places.

He told me, Don't go into those places.

(laughter)

Um, do you think frogs are any good at surfing?

Toad-ally.

(weak laughter)

(sigh) I hate my life.

What did the puppy want to be when he grew up?

A bark-eologist.

(exhales)

(audience laughs)

Uh, what did one iphoness say to the other iphoness?

I used to know this one.

Which horse runs the city?

The mare of course.

Hm.

What's the best part of living in Switzerland?

I don't know, but the flag is a big plus.

(audience laughs)

Which baseball player has the shortest commute?

The catcher, he only works from home.

The electron asked the photon, Did you pack your suitcase?

The photon responded, No, I'm traveling light.

(weak laughter)

The nerd gets it.

What do you do when you see a space man?

You park in it, man.

(audience laughs)

How did the hipster burn his lips?

He drank his coffee before it was cool.

What's the difference between a hippo and a zippo?

One is very heavy, the other's a little lighter.

Why did the chicken cross the road, roll in the mud,

and cross the road again?

Because he was a dirty double-crosser.

(bleep) me.

(audience laughs)

(exhales) That was uh, that was rough.

We expected it to be rough, and it was rough.

It was like every time a joke died, I felt like I was dying

a little bit inside.

At least it validated our general feeling

that none of these devices are very funny.

And the audience agreed.

Anyway, let's get to the results.

Siri was absolutely hands down the least funny

of these four AI assistants.

She doesn't even really try.

[Siri] Get serious. Ha.

Up next was Amazon's Alexa,

which had a couple good jokes and you can add skills,

but out of the box, it's just kind of cheese ball stuff

that was really, really cringe-worthy.

So that leaves first and second to Google's Assistant

and Microsoft's Cortana and it was actually really close

between these two.

They were just a little bit more clever and they got

a little bit more of a laugh out of the audience.

Neither of them should ever be actual stand-up comedians

but for the purposes of our test, they fared the best.

But what do you think?

Let us know in the comments below,

subscribe to Wired if you haven't already,

and with all that being said, there's really only one thing

left to do.

(exhales)

So as may be obvious I'm not a stand-up comedian at all.

I'm actually a journalist from Wired

and we asked Siri and Google's Assistant

and Amazon's Alexa and Microsoft's Cortana

to tell us the very best jokes that they could.

We wanted to come here and see which ones would do the best.

So, you guys really been very, very helpful

through this extremely brutal experience for me.

(audience laughs)

Thank you guys, good night.

(gong chimes)