For fans of computers and comedy alike, an accessible and entertaining look into how we can use artificial intelligence to make smart machines funny.
For fans of computers and comedy alike, an accessible and entertaining look into how we can use artificial intelligence to make smart machines funny.
Most robots and smart devices are not known for their joke-telling abilities. And yet, as computer scientist Tony Veale explains in Your Wit Is My Command, machines are not inherently unfunny; they are just programmed that way. By examining the mechanisms of humor and jokes--how jokes actually works--Veale shows that computers can be built with a sense of humor, capable not only of producing a joke but also of appreciating one. Along the way, he explores the humor-generating capacities of fictional robots ranging from B-9 in Lost in Space to TARS in Interstellar, maps out possible scenarios for developing witty robots, and investigates such aspects of humor as puns, sarcasm, and offensiveness.
In order for robots to be funny, Veale explains, we need to analyze humor computationally. Using artificial intelligence (AI), Veale shows that joke generation is a knowledge-based process--a sense of humor is blend of wit and wisdom. He notes that existing technologies can detect sarcasm in conversation, and explains how some jokes can be pre-scripted while others are generated algorithmically--all while making the technical aspects of AI accessible for the general reader. Of course, there's no single algorithm or technology that we can plug in to make our virtual assistants or GPS voice navigation funny, but Veale provides a computational roadmap for how we might get there.
By:
Tony Veale
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Weight: 567g
ISBN: 9780262045995
ISBN 10: 0262045990
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 21 September 2021
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Foreword Preface 1 Does Not Compute: Why Our Machines Need a Sense of Humor 2 It's a Joke, Jim, But Not as we Know It: A Tour of Scholarly Perspectives and Theories of Humor 3 Tweet my Shorts: Twitterbots Can Turn Our Theories into Simple Practice 4 Double Trouble: Humorous Storytelling and Embodied AI 5 Practical Magic: Systematic Approaches to Joke Creation 6 Danger, Danger: Incongruity and the Time Course of Jokes 7 Wit Happens: Computational Models of Punning and Wordplay 8 Physics Envy: Quantitative Approaches to Humor Analysis 9 Taking Exception: Computational Treatments of Sarcasm and Irony 10 At Wit's End: Lessons for the Future Notes Bibliography Index
Tony Veale is Associate Professor of Computer Science at University College Dublin, with a focus on computational creativity. He is the coauthor of Twitterbots- Making Machines That Make Meaning (MIT Press).
