Over the past year, the swell of chatbots and virtual assistants has grown larger, and their capabilities have grown more complex. Want a bot to schedule your meetings? Remind you to bring an umbrella if it's going to rain? But while completing practical tasks is the goal of most chatbots and virtual assistants, we don't have conversations simply to get things done. Conversation can also bring connection and joy, and laughter is one of the most fundamental mechanisms for making people feel comfortable and creating positive associations and memories.
A look at researchers engaged in the seriously difficult business of teaching machines to laugh. Attendees at this year's SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, were greeted by a curious sight. Crowding the streets was a group of demonstrators protesting against the development of artificial intelligence, with signs and slogans such as, "Humans are the future" and "A.I., say goodbye." Was this backlash for decades of computer dependency, a kind of wake up call to remind people that technology is just a tool? Those sober slogans hit home for many, but they also provoked laughter from passersby.
Over the past year, the swell of chatbots and virtual assistants has grown larger, and their capabilities have grown more complex. Want a bot to schedule your meetings? Remind you to bring an umbrella if it's going to rain? But while completing practical tasks is the goal of most chatbots and virtual assistants, we don't have conversations simply to get things done. Conversation can also bring connection and joy, and laughter is one of the most fundamental mechanisms for making people feel comfortable and creating positive associations and memories.
Virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa are useful for a lot of things, like telling you what the weather's going to be or reminding you of an upcoming calendar appointment. But they can be entertaining too, providing the occasional fun fact or playing that hit song from Beyonce. Or, when you want a little levity in an otherwise crappy day, telling some really corny dad jokes. You've probably heard them before. Ask Siri, Alexa, Google or Cortana to tell you a joke, and you'll likely hear something like this: "I couldn't figure out why a baseball kept getting larger.