Maybe it’s time we started a thread for jokes and funny stories associated with chatbots and chatbot development. I’m really not sure how many such items there might be out there, but if we don’t start collecting them, we’ll never know.

I got the idea for this topic when I was browsing the GNU MAKE manual this morning. Specifically in Chapter 13 “Incompatibilities and Missing Features”, I spied the following entry:

“GNU make does not include any built-in implicit rules for compiling or preprocessing EFL programs. If we hear of anyone who is using EFL, we will gladly add them.”

http://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/make.html#Missing

If EFL means what I think it means (here in Australia we would call it ESL which is arguably more ‘politically correct’) then I think it’s pretty funny, since that’s exactly what I’m trying to achieve with my own work.

Andrew Smith - Oct 14, 2010:

If EFL means what I think it means (here in Australia we would call it ESL which is arguably more ‘politically correct’) then I think it’s pretty funny, since that’s exactly what I’m trying to achieve with my own work.

I do not know what you think it means, but I think it means:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFL_(programming_language)

Richard

Richard, for some reason, the link you’ve provided is being altered by the forum’s code, and leads to a page that you haven’t intended. I thought it was just a typo on your part, so I tried to insert the correct URL into your post, using a couple of different methods, but no matter what I tried, the forum script is still removing the parentheses. I expect that this is because the Expression Engine has some sort of “anti-hacker” protocols in place, but I’m not certain. By the time you read this, I will have also posted a notification about it in the admin area. Fortunately for everyone here, the link isn’t COMPLETELY broken, and you can still get to the page in question with just an extra click or two.

Well, the respected work of B. Watterson on artificial personalities might be appropriate for this forum: http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2010/10/14/

Great find, CR! VERY appropriate! 

C R Hunt - Oct 15, 2010:

Well, the respected work of B. Watterson on artificial personalities might be appropriate for this forum: http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2010/10/14/

Now that’s what I’m talking about! It just occurred to me though that humor is something that ought to work both ways and I recalled reading this news article a few years ago:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/02/1995267.htm

Ctrl + Alt + Del if you’ve heard this one before

Experts in artificial intelligence have built a computer program that can understand simple jokes, marking an important step in making robots seem friendlier to humans, the weekly New Scientist reports.

Previous attempts at getting machines to understand humour have failed miserably, because what is funny to humans is subjective and complex - and fiendishly difficult to program.

But Julia Taylor and Lawrence Mazlack of the University of Cincinnati in Ohio have devised a prototype joke-detection software.

They began by loading a program with a database of words, extracted from a children’s dictionary to keep things simple, and then supplied it with examples of how the same word can have different meanings depending on the context.

When presented with a text, the program uses that knowledge to work out how new words may relate to each other, and what they probably mean.

If it fails to find a word that matches its context, it rummages around in a digital pronunciation guide for similar-sounding words.

And if any of those words are a better fit for the rest of the sentence, the passage is flagged, “ha ha”, as a joke.

So far, the joke-bot only understands rather leaden puns and still delivers a blank look when facing more complex stuff or dead-pan humour.

Ever read this article by Graeme Ritchie
“Can Computers Create Humor?”

http://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/2251/2104

(requires AAAI login, I’ll be happy to send the article through e-mail. Drop me an email through my contact form )

so this doesn’t work anymore?????