They say that computers can't think, but I have one that does. It thinks it's broken.

Gene Perret (1937–2022) was an American comedy writer best known for his work on television variety and talk shows, including writing for Bob Hope and other major entertainers. The line plays on a long-running popular debate—especially prominent from the mid‑20th century onward—about whether computers can “think,” a question raised by early AI research and by public fascination with increasingly capable machines. Perret’s joke reframes the philosophical claim in everyday, domestic terms: the computer’s “thinking” is reduced to a familiar user experience of malfunction and frustration, a staple topic in late‑20th‑century stand‑up and monologue writing as personal computers became commonplace.

The humor hinges on a bait-and-switch in the word “think.” The first sentence invokes the serious claim that computers lack genuine cognition; the second pretends to refute it by attributing a mental state to the machine. The punchline then collapses that grand claim into a petty, relatable complaint: the computer “thinks it’s broken,” i.e., it behaves as if it were. The joke satirizes both techno-optimism and techno-skepticism by suggesting that what users most often encounter is not intelligence but failure. It also anthropomorphizes technology in a way that mirrors how people talk about devices—assigning intentions or beliefs to explain unpredictable behavior.