Dentsu Creative UK's Christmas Cracker Finds Out if AI Can Really Be Funny

2022 was the year of AI. It can paint like Rembrandt, predict the future, and even screen for disease. Working with the likes of Midjourney and DALL-E 2, we’ve all become obsessed with its bizarre, beautiful and scary possibilities. But can AI take on Christmas? Can it make the final leap to becoming sentient? Can it be funny? 

For this year’s agency Christmas card, DENTSU CREATIVE UK decided to find out. Using an AI content generator, they fed in all the essential ingredients for a joke, classic and (not so classic) set up lines, and let AI do the rest.   

Introducing the first AI Christmas Cracker, the Artificial Intell-a-Joke D25, the cracker joke generator of the future. 

How it works:

The recipient of the card receives a beautifully crafted digital cracker. Getting into the spirit, they input their name and set cheesiness from mild to stinking. Sound on. Initiate joke sequence. 

As it starts to compute the joke, we see it animate – or think - through a range of Christmassy states – from festive jumper to brussels sprouts - until it explodes in a haze of confetti and one of infinite AI jokes appears. 

What did the elf say to the snowman?        

I'm not a snowman! I'm an elf!

Why did the turkey cross the road?

To get away from the family.

So is it funny?… Should comedians, as well as designers and illustrators, be fearing for their jobs in 2023?

Sorry AI; but we got this.  

It turns out that the best humour may come from human minds, after all. That’s why the AI Christmas cracker is in aid of Mind UK, who provide advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem.

Sue Higgs, executive creative director of DENTSU CREATIVE UK said, “After the year we’ve all had, we all need a good laugh, but is an AI cracker the one to bring it? Turns out, probably not, but we had a laugh trying, and we can all rest assured AI isn’t coming for our chuckle muscles. Humour is safe in the hands and minds of humans.”

“They said AI couldn’t be funny. They said machines have no sense of humour. They may have had a point,” added Sarah Watson and Nick O’Brien, Creative Directors at DENTSU CREATIVE. “It turns out Christmas is too much, even for Artificial Intelligence. More dud joke than dad joke, at least the D25’s gags are paper and plastic free.” 

Try it out for yourself and share the mirth here.  

In true tech launch tradition, the cracker was teased on social, from sneak peaks of the sleek cracker, with a flashing red button mimicking Rudolf's shiny nose, to a disastrously funny interaction between the D25 and its virtual assistant friends, in which it tries to tell them a joke. Check them out on Instagram @dentsucreativeuk and LinkedIn @dentsucreative.