VOA慢速英语2019--Why Robot Humor Mostly Falls Flat

 

Robots are increasingly being developed to think and act like humans. But one common human quality that has been difficult for engineers to recreate in machines is humor.

Most robots are powered by artificial intelligence, or AI, and machine learning technology. Some have performed better than humans in tests designed to measure machine intelligence.

For example, we have reported on experiments involving robots competing against humans in a reading test and in a live debate.

Computer scientists have also hoped to give robots technical skills to help them recognize, process and react to humor. But these attempts have mostly failed. AI experts say that in many cases, attempts to make robots understand humor end up producing funny results – but not in the way they were supposed to.

Context is everything

Kiki Hempelmann is a computational language expert who studies humor at Texas A&M University-Commerce. “Artificial intelligence will never get jokes like humans do,” he told the Associated Press. The main problem, Hempelmann says, is that robots completely miss the context of humor. In other words, they do not understand the situation or related ideas that make a joke funny.

Other experts who study the subject agree that context is very important to understanding humor – both for humans and for robots.

Tristan Miller¹ is a computer scientist and linguist² at Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany. He also spoke³ to the AP. In one research project, he studied more than 10,000 puns.

Puns are a kind of joke that uses a word with two meanings. For example, you could say, “Balloons do not like pop music.” The word “pop” can be a way of saying popular music; or, “pop” can be the sound a balloon makes when it explodes.

But a robot might not get the joke. Tristan Miller says that is because humor is a kind of creative language that is extremely difficult for computer intelligence to understand.

“It’s because it relies so much on real-world knowledge,” Miller said. This includes background knowledge and common sense knowledge. “A computer doesn’t have these real-world experiences to draw on. It only knows what you tell it and what it draws from,” he added.?

Humor is job security for humans?

Allison Bishop⁴ is a computer scientist at New York’s Columbia University. She also performs stand-up comedy. She told the AP a big problem is that machines are trained to look for patterns.

Comedy, on the other hand, relies on things that stay close to a pattern, but not completely within it. To be funny, humor must also not be predictable, Bishop said. This makes it much harder for a machine to recognize and understand what is funny.

Bishop says since robots have great difficulty understanding humor, she feels like it gives her better job security as a comedy performer. It even made her parents happy when her brother decided⁵ to become a full-time⁶ comedy writer because it meant he would not be replaced by a machine, she added.?

The risks of teaching humor to AI systems

Purdue University computer scientist Julia Rayz has spent 15 years trying to get computers to understand humor. The results, she says, have at times been laughable.

In one experiment, she gave the computer two different groups of sentences. Some were jokes, others were not. The computer kept mistaking things as jokes that were not. When Rayz asked the computer why it thought something was a joke, the answer made complete sense technically⁷. But she said the results coming from the computer were not funny, nor memorable⁸.

Despite the difficulties, Darmstadt University’s Miller says there are good reasons to keep trying to teach humor to robots. It could make machines more relatable, especially if they can learn to understand sarcasm⁹, he noted¹⁰. Humans use sarcasm to say one thing but mean another.

But Texas A&M’s Kiki Hempelmann is not sure such attempts are a good idea. “Teaching AI systems humor is dangerous because they may find it where it isn’t, and they may use it where it’s inappropriate,” he said. “Maybe bad AI will start killing¹¹ people because it thinks it is funny,” he added.

I’m Bryan Lynn.

Words in This Story

artificial intelligence – n. the ability of a machine to use and analyze¹² data in an attempt to reproduce human behavior

context – n. the words that are used with a certain word or phrase and that help to explain its meaning

linguist – n. someone who studies human speech

pun – n. a joke that uses a word that has two meanings

rely – v. to need for support, to depend on

pattern – n. a particular way something is done or repeated

sarcasm – n. the use of words that mean the opposite of what you really want to say especially in order to insult someone, to show irritation¹³, or to be funny?

inappropriate – adj. not suitable

1 miller   

n.磨坊主

参考例句：

• Every miller draws water to his own mill.磨坊主都往自己磨里注水。
• The skilful miller killed millions of lions with his ski.技术娴熟的磨坊主用雪橇杀死了上百万头狮子。

2 linguist   

n.语言学家；精通数种外国语言者

参考例句：

• I used to be a linguist till I become a writer.过去我是个语言学家，后来成了作家。
• Professor Cui has a high reputation as a linguist.崔教授作为语言学家名声很高。

3 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

4 bishop   

n.主教，（国际象棋）象

参考例句：

• He was a bishop who was held in reverence by all.他是一位被大家都尊敬的主教。
• Two years after his death the bishop was canonised.主教逝世两年后被正式封为圣者。

5 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

6 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

7 technically   

adv.专门地，技术上地

参考例句：

• Technically it is the most advanced equipment ever.从技术上说，这是最先进的设备。
• The tomato is technically a fruit,although it is eaten as a vegetable.严格地说，西红柿是一种水果，尽管它是当作蔬菜吃的。

8 memorable   

adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的

参考例句：

• This was indeed the most memorable day of my life.这的确是我一生中最值得怀念的日子。
• The veteran soldier has fought many memorable battles.这个老兵参加过许多难忘的战斗。

9 sarcasm   

n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic）

参考例句：

• His sarcasm hurt her feelings.他的讽刺伤害了她的感情。
• She was given to using bitter sarcasm.她惯于用尖酸刻薄语言挖苦人。

10 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

11 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

12 analyze   

vt.分析，解析 (=analyse)

参考例句：

• We should analyze the cause and effect of this event.我们应该分析这场事变的因果。
• The teacher tried to analyze the cause of our failure.老师设法分析我们失败的原因。

13 irritation   

n.激怒，恼怒，生气

参考例句：

• He could not hide his irritation that he had not been invited.他无法掩饰因未被邀请而生的气恼。
• Barbicane said nothing,but his silence covered serious irritation.巴比康什么也不说，但是他的沉默里潜伏着阴郁的怒火。