[comp.ai] Humor & AI

demers@beowulf.ucsd.edu (David E Demers) (11/05/88)

The question was raised as to whether a program existed which
would judge the funniness of a joke.  Perhaps the poster had
heard of an old Robert Heinlein story, The Moon is a Harsh
Mistress, in which a computer, Mycroft, becomes "sentient".
Part of the story involves Mike's learning about what makes
jokes funny.  I believe he categorized jokes as "funny once",
"funny always", and "not funny".

Dave DeMers
UCSD 
Dept of Computer Science and Engineering