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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Promo
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
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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