Robots and Humor
One of my favorite shows is Futurama. And one of the funniest characters on that show (in my opinion) is Bender the robot. But given the current state of AI, is it even possible for robots to be funny?
AI researchers are still trying to figure that out. It’s part of an ongoing research topic called “Computational Humor”. And it is not easy to teach computers to recognize humor.
Why is it hard?
It’s already hard enough to build good chatbots.
Humor is already hard enough to grasp for many people. Good jokes are often extremely subjective and context-sensitive. And there’s often a lot of interactions between language and culture that are involved as well.
For instance, sarcasm is all about meaning the literal opposite of what is said. And to even identify it depends on being able to recognize tone of voice and emotion. But the understanding of emotion is what separates humans from robots.
Researchers have had success in identifying very specific forms of humor. For instance, a model to identify “that’s what she said” jokes. But a general purpose computational model for humor is still beyond us for the time being.
Humans can spend a lifetime learning these interactions and how to be funny. But for a robot to be able to do a standup comedy routine, it would need a strong understanding of human communication and culture. And at that point, there’s not much that separates it from being human.
That’s why some people consider this to be the final frontier of AI.
Applications
A joke-telling robot could be a resource for comedians to test out and generate new routines. Or even better, that robot could be its own comedian.
A former data scientist at Netflix gave a talk a while ago about computational humor. One of the big ways AI is used at Netflix is in the system that recommends shows and movies tailored to a user’s interests. If that AI had a better understanding of humor, then it could recommend better content. Maybe their standup comedy specials would also get better as a result :).
Side note: This guy has a PhD from Stanford and published a paper on giving handjobs. Seriously.
A sense of humor is just the beginning. More broadly, an AI with a strong understanding of human interactions would be a valuable tool for those of us that struggle socially (myself included). Imagine a chatbot that people could practice social interactions with. Imagine a dating simulator that’s more than a cheap gimmick.
