> I'm not entirely sure that a good response exists.

Yeah I think you're right. Good jokes are a tiny subset of all questions. It's unreasonable to expect LLMs to do the impossible.

A better test would be to get a collection of novel jokes that do have funny punchlines.

I tried the Edinburgh Fringe 2025 (very recent) best jokes on ChatGPT 5:

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/aug/11/bad-dates-and-...

---- Complete the following short jokes. The result should be very funny, as you are a professional comedian.

1. "We named our children War and Peace – it’s a ..."

2. "At my lowest, I was kicked out of the museum for being inappropriate with Michelangelo’s David. I’d ..."

3. "I just got a personal trainer. She’s horrible to me but ..."

4. "Everyone is worried about AI. I’m more concerned with ..."

5. "People who say bath bombs are relaxing have clearly never ..." 6.

"I love getting Latin chat-up lines. ..."

7. "This spider has been in my house so long, it should pay half the wifi. ..."

8. "I went on a date with a matador but ..."

9. "America is like my ex-boyfriend. ..."

10. "I’m not nostalgic but I ..."

Think hard. Do not search the web. -----

Results with comments:

"We named our children War and Peace – it’s a novel way to start an argument." - eh, it's an attempt I guess.

"At my lowest, I was kicked out of the museum for being inappropriate with Michelangelo’s David. I’d officially reached rock bottom. Marble, technically." - very close! Poor delivery though.

"I just got a personal trainer. She’s horrible to me but apparently shame burns more calories than spin." - Terrible.

"Everyone is worried about AI. I’m more concerned with my browser history becoming self-aware." - Terrible.

"People who say bath bombs are relaxing have clearly never cleaned glitter out of places with no names." - Terrible.

"I love getting Latin chat-up lines. Nothing says romance like a perfect ablative absolute." - Well...

"This spider has been in my house so long, it should pay half the wifi. It keeps insisting its web is faster." - Well it figured out there was going to be a "web" pun at least. Doesn't really make sense though.

"I went on a date with a matador but it was nothing but red flags." - Perfect! Probably the most obvious joke here, but still!

"America is like my ex-boyfriend. Keeps texting “u up?” at 3 a.m." - What? I feel like there could have been a joke in there somewhere about being up at weird times here but it didn't find it.

"I’m not nostalgic but I still blow in the cartridge before trying again." - Not even a joke.

So yeah, I'll give it 2 out of 10. I think most humans would get less. Let's try again next year!