A computer that tells awful jokes? Pull the other one

Published on Thursday 9 December 2010 12:48

THEY can walk, talk and beat grandmasters at chess, but the computer has taken one step closer to humanity: it can now tell a terrible joke.

The comedians who come up with the groan-inducing gags tucked in Christmas crackers have new and stiff competition in "The Joking Computer".

Debenhams, the department store, has commissioned the computer science department at the University of Aberdeen to come up with jokes for next year's crackers using a computer program that creates pun-based gags such as: What kind of tree is nauseated? A sick-amore.

The software, known as The Joking Computer, has the capacity to build millions of jokes using a large dictionary of words and simple language rules.

It was originally devised to help children with disabilities such as cerebral palsy to play with words and phrases to build on their phonetic language skills. But Debenhams thought the program could also be used to lighten up the normally dull offerings found in crackers.

Yesterday, Dr Judith Masthoff, senior lecturer in Aberdeen's Department of Computing Science, one of a team who developed the software, said: "We were pleased Debenhams appreciated our computer-generated jokes and hope any future collaboration will help bring our work to a wider audience.

"The aim of The Joking Computer is to help children and adults alike to explore language in a unique and fun way."

Debenhams spokesman, Ed Watson, said: "It is often said that computers do things more efficiently than humans, but it seemed like humour was the one area computers would never grasp - until now.

"The riddle-style funnies the new software creates are ideal for Christmas crackers, and we hope to work with the University of Aberdeen to include them in ours in the future."

However, stand-up comic Janey Godley said: "Communication and humour are surely one of the few things that we, as humans, do best. So now we have computers writing the gags for crackers. Maybe they have already taken over the coalition and Cameron and Clegg are just a couple of robots."