Researchers Design Funny ‘Bot' That Can Understand Humor

Finally you’ll have a friend who will laugh at your stupid jokes—never mind that it’s a robot.

University of Cincinnati researchers Julia Taylor and Larry Mazlack recently unveiled a "bot" (actually for now it’s still just a software program) that recognizes jokes. They recently reported the development at the American Association for Artificial Intelligence conference in Vancouver, Canada.

"This work has a relationship to 'Sociable Computing,'" says Mazlack, who is the coordinator of the Applied Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and coordinator of the Data and Knowledge Management research group. "Currently, computers are often difficult to communicate with, to use and to apply to solving problems that are informally stated."

This subject has been highlighted in many Star Trek episodes involving the emotionally clueless, literally minded Data, and in reality the subject has been studied for decades in the fields of programming and robotics. Developments such as these offer meaningful improvements in robots that are used as companions or to otherwise interact directly with humans.

Taylor, a doctoral student under UC Professor Mazlack, who is studying data mining (the science of deriving meaning from large amounts of data), and humor in robots says that the program can in fact recognize jokes, if the necessary background and world knowledge are provided.

Here’s an example of one of the bot’s favorite jokes:

Mother to boy: “Johnny, you’ve been working in the garden a lot this summer.

Boy: “I know. My teacher told me to weed a lot.”

“Notice that the boy says the teacher told him to WEED. Since ‘weed’ sounds similar to 'read,' the program can find this wordplay,” Taylor says.

Taylor’s task was to “train” the computer with information relative to American English at a child’s level.

“The ability to appreciate humor is an enormous increment in subtlety,” says Professor Tom Mantei, a fellow researcher in UC’s College of Engineering. “You need to know a lot to ‘get’ humor — a computer does not find it easy.”

Without going into all the possible scenarios, one can see how the ability to not take everything literally would be a helpful trait for robots to pocess. The eventual goal is to create programming for robots that allows them to understand the subtleties of how humans communicate in real life.

"Part of the difficulty lies with the formality that computers and people need to use to interact with each other," says Mazlack. "A critical aspect in achieving sociable computing is being able to informally communicate in a human language with computers."

According to Mantei, this type of programming will eventually make computers and people more in sync.

“This research is another step toward [robots] approaching the capability of the human mind.”

Posted by Rebecca

Related Galaxy Posts:

10 Weird & Amazing Robot Facts

“What is Life?” A New Breed of Robots Are Causing Scientists to Question

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Comments

[healthylife]

Nowadays Bot can do anything, I hope in the year 2025 most americans would use robots for their day to day use. This robot which understands humour was really fascinating.

[healthylife]

Nowadays Bot can do anything, I hope in the year 2025 most americans would use robots for their day to day use. This robot which understands humour was really fascinating.

[healthylife]

Nowadays Bot can do anything, I hope in the year 2025 most americans would use robots for their day to day use. This robot which understands humour was really fascinating.