DID you hear the one about the computer with a sense of humour? Didn't think so. Computers can do many things, but stand-up comedy is not one of them. Yet the idea that computers can be witty might not be all that far-fetched. Perhaps machines need not be conscious to understand humour, and even to invent and tell jokes.
Physicist Igor Suslov of the Kapitza Institute for Physical Problems in Moscow, Russia, has designed a computer model which he says explains the evolution of humour. Our ability to experience humour, he suggests, ultimately depends on quirks in how the brain handles information.
As a student, Suslov performed in the university theatre. "We didn't have much time to write our plays," he recalls. "I began to wonder if it might be possible to create jokes more or less automatically." He didn't work out how back then, but he never forgot the ...
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