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AI & SOCIETY

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07-06-2016 | Open Forum

Machine humour: examples from Turing test experiments

Authors: Huma Shah, Kevin Warwick

Published in: AI & SOCIETY | Issue 4/2017

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Abstract

In this paper, we look at the possibility of a machine having a sense of humour. In particular, we focus on actual machine utterances in Turing test discourses. In doing so, we do not consider the Turing test in depth and what this might mean for humanity, rather we merely look at cases in conversations when the output from a machine can be considered to be humorous. We link such outpourings with Turing’s “arguments from various disabilities” used against the concept of a machine being able to think, taken from his seminal work of 1950. Finally we consider the role that humour might play in adding to the deception, integral to the Turing test, that a machine in practice appears to be a human.

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Title: Machine humour: examples from Turing test experiments
Authors: Huma Shah
Kevin Warwick
Publication date: 07-06-2016
Publisher: Springer London
Published in: AI & SOCIETY / Issue 4/2017
Print ISSN: 0951-5666
Electronic ISSN: 1435-5655
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-016-0669-0

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