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by rossjudson 1305 days ago
In the domain of text, garbage is not amusing. In the domain of images, it often is.
4 comments

You make a subtle point.

The human mind is tightly coupled to language. The existence of humour is the most prominent -- yet not fully recognised -- example of this coupling.

We can share images and enjoy interpreting them. The image can be as random as splashes of paint. But throw random words at humans, or words that fail to cohere, and disputes arise.

To modify one of the criticisms already made: The entire WWW is "little more than statistical nonsense at scale."

I think the mistake here is science versus art. In science garbage is not intriguing (though AI generated images can be disturbingly well done), in art it can be amusing whether text or imagery.

"Twas Brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogoves and the mome raths outgrabe." (Pardon misspellings, I'm doing this from long-ago memory.)

Also, madlibs.

> In the domain of text, garbage is not amusing.

I disagree. For example, I find the following pretty hilarious: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33673193

In fact that is the core distinction in my opinion