Comedians who rely on clever wordplay and writers of witty headlines can rest a little easier, for the moment at least, research on AI suggests.

Experts from universities in the UK and Italy have been investigating whether large language models (LLMs) understand puns – and found them wanting.

The team from Cardiff University , in south Wales, and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice concluded that LLMs were able to spot the structure of a pun but did not really get the joke.

An example they tested was: “I used to be a comedian, but my life became a joke.” If they replaced this with: “I used to be a comedian, but my life became chaotic,” LLMs still tended to perceive the presence of a pun.

They also tried: “Long fairy tales have a tendency to dragon.” If they replaced “dragon” with the

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