Iacob Postavaru. Emilia Bunea. Crina Pungulescu. David Stolin.
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Wit and wisdom: using computational humor to communicate about Economics
Iacob Postavaru. Emilia Bunea. Crina Pungulescu. David Stolin.
Paper
This paper explores the potential of large language models to enhance economics education through computational humor. We employ OpenAI’s GPT-4 model to infuse humor into sum – maries of three Nobel laureates’ contributions to economics and conduct a small empirical exercise with undergraduate students to test the pedagogical efficacy of computational humor. The results suggest that computer-generated humor may be an effective learning aid: the results of the students who rate the humorous versions of the instructional texts as genuinely funny are significantly better than the results of their peers who are not amused. Encouragingly for teachers who try to be funny but fail, we do not find evidence that ineffectual humor is detrimental to learning.
