What kind of jokes would computers write?

Humour is a very human thing to do, but can computers learn to do it? They will, if the new generation of computational linguists has their way. But what would a computer find funny? And are computer scientists funny enough to pull this off?

Daniel, Ben, and Kylie get serious about comedy on this episode of Talk the Talk.


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A Computer Walks into a Bar | Talk the Talk, episode 293

Promo

Promo, 2017-06-20 with Kylie Sturgess: Computer Humor

Kylie and I chat in advance of the show. Can I manage to keep Kylie talking long enough that she won’t have enough time to play TISM? 

(Just kidding; I actually like TISM. Other people in the office are not, shall we say, as convinced.)

Also at https://www.patreon.com/posts/11852241


Cutting Room Floor

Cutting Room Floor 293: A Computer Walks into a Bar

While Kylie’s taking selfies, Daniel and Ben discuss whether to be a hardcase teacher or not. Then we take a walk down Memory Lane, and listen to our old themes. (Ben still loves Cameo.)

Daniel is still freaking out that so many people say ‘spag bog’ and he hadn’t heard it. Ben explains why he doesn’t think too hard about what’s funny. 

On a serious note, how do you communicate with your friends who are kind of into the woo-woo? 

Also at https://www.patreon.com/posts/12249286


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Show notes

Can quantum theory explain why jokes are funny?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170317102438.htm

447 people have been shot and killed by police in 2017.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2017/

Body cams reveal U.S. police use less respectful language with black drivers
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/body-cams-reveal-us-police-use-less-respectful-language-black-drivers

Paper: Language from police body camera footage shows racial disparities in officer respect
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/05/30/1702413114

How funny is this word? The ‘snunkoople’ effect
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151130131847.htm

Paper: Telling the world’s least funny jokes: On the quantification of humor as entropy (PDF)
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cyrus_Shaoul/publication/282817301_Telling_the_world’s_least_funny_jokes_On_the_quantification_of_humor_as_entropy/links/561d46d708ae50795afd7bcd.pdf

Paper: Unsupervised joke generation from big data (PDF)
http://aclweb.org/anthology/P13-2041

Paper: Humor Recognition and Humor Anchor Extraction (PDF)
http://aclweb.org/anthology/D15-1284

Paper: HAHAcronym: A Computational Humor System (PDF)
http://aclweb.org/anthology/P05-3029

Paper: Automatic Humor Classification on Twitter (PDF)
http://aclweb.org/anthology/N12-2012

Meet the Goopies
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/fashion/gwyneth-paltrow-in-goop-health-wellness.html

Gwyneth Paltrow advises women to ‘steam-clean’ their vaginas
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/beauty/gwyneth-paltrow-advises-women-to-steamclean-their-vaginas-20150130-131xsp.html

Gwyneth Paltrow Doesn’t Know What Goop Is Selling
http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/06/gwyneth-paltrow-goop-i-dont-know

Word ‘milk’ banned for use in branding of plant-based products
https://www.fginsight.com/news/word-milk-banned-for-use-in-branding-of-plant-based-products-22024

The Battle Over the Word ‘Milk’
https://www.outsideonline.com/2152336/should-nut-milk-be-considered-milk

The surprisingly heated political battle raging over the word ‘milk’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/10/the-surprisingly-heated-political-battle-raging-over-the-word-milk/

A block of “Greek text” found its way into a newspaper page.
https://irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/b25a98a2/files/uploaded/No%20Gains%20From%20Taking%20Drugs.pdf

Online Etymology Dictionary: ear
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=ear

Online Etymology Dictionary: earth
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=earth


Image credit: http://www.softicons.com/object-icons/toys-icons-by-fixicon/robot-icon


Transcript

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