Comical computers and dull PCs: The ethics of giving artificial intelligence a sense of humour
Start Date
27-3-2021 3:15 PM
End Date
27-3-2021 3:30 PM
Description
There seems an increasing and equal measure of excitement and anxiety about the growth in sophistication technology has demonstrated over the past 100 years. One particular anxiety that has been the subject of academic research and science fiction alike is artificial intelligence (AI) and the threat or hope it poses. But a major research gap in contemplating the ethics and future of AI is humour. While science fiction often portrays AI as humourless, researchers of computational humour are working to engineer into AI an understanding of humour. Research projects like JAPE, HAHAacronym and STANDUP have attempted to implement humour to varying degrees of success. But humour can be greatly contentious, inflicting offence and even breaking certain speech laws. If we are to programme a sense of humour into AI, whose sense of humour ought to be? Equally, if we exclude this form of intelligence from AI, then will we be able to safely engage in human-agent interaction without AI being able to discern between bona-fide and non bona-fide communication? This paper offers an introduction to the ethical problems in computational humour.
Recommended Citation
McCaffrey, L. (2021, March). Comical computers and dull PCs: The ethics of giving artificial intelligence a sense of humour. Presented at the Postgraduate Conference on Interdisciplinary Learning: Re-Imagining Postgraduate Studies in the 21st Century and Beyond. Lingnan University, Hong Kong.
Comical computers and dull PCs: The ethics of giving artificial intelligence a sense of humour
There seems an increasing and equal measure of excitement and anxiety about the growth in sophistication technology has demonstrated over the past 100 years. One particular anxiety that has been the subject of academic research and science fiction alike is artificial intelligence (AI) and the threat or hope it poses. But a major research gap in contemplating the ethics and future of AI is humour. While science fiction often portrays AI as humourless, researchers of computational humour are working to engineer into AI an understanding of humour. Research projects like JAPE, HAHAacronym and STANDUP have attempted to implement humour to varying degrees of success. But humour can be greatly contentious, inflicting offence and even breaking certain speech laws. If we are to programme a sense of humour into AI, whose sense of humour ought to be? Equally, if we exclude this form of intelligence from AI, then will we be able to safely engage in human-agent interaction without AI being able to discern between bona-fide and non bona-fide communication? This paper offers an introduction to the ethical problems in computational humour.