Scientist Designs 'Bot with (Awful) Sense of Humor

Humor's an integral part of social interaction; knock-knock jokes, well they're a start. As robotics has grown more complex over the years, a number of researchers have begun tackling the sociability part of the equation: No small matter if robots and humans are to someday regularly interact with one another. Most recently, engineers at the University of Cincinnati  developed a software program that "gets" jokes. Lame jokes, to be sure, but a nevertheless impressive step for artificial intelligence. By giving the program a basic level of English and training it to recognize homonyms, the developers created a 'bot that could search through its knowledge database and recognize something meant to be funny.

So, what does the robot like?

Knock, Knock
Who is there?
Dismay
Dismay who?
Dismay not be a funny joke

Could 'bots someday replace comedians? Seems unlikely, though frankly this one's already funnier than Gallagher—Abby Seiff

Read more here.