Response to 'Getting a Laugh' by Xiaotian Ma

Good point: it is hard to create artificial humor. Expressing humor is even difficult for a lot of people.

Besides the funny example of the scripted robot, Robothespian, I can think of another scenario in which we laugh at robots. It is usually when they surprise us. We laugh because the robot defeats a professional chess player. We laugh because somebody kicks Boston Dynamics' Spot robot around, and its movements are so realistic.

Sometimes we also laugh when a robot fails. We will be like: "Aww, of course it can't reach the top shelf! Haha! It's a robot!"

This is not humor. Just like Xiao already said. But robots can make humans laugh.

If I were to create a robot that makes humans laugh, it would be either a clumsy robot or one that somehow surprises you.

Funny robots

For the record, I think these robots would be funny. This is a subjective thing though.

A robot marches around the room very clumsily, like a robot that cannot walk very naturally. When you say something that implies that you think he is not a cool robot, he walks to you very naturally and does a perfect backflip. At first, people might have been subconsciously judging the creator of the robot, for presenting such a 'mediocre' robot on the exhibition they are at. But then they are surprised by a perfect performance.

Or the other way around! A robot walks around the room very naturally. Its movements almost look like human movements and the audience is like: "Wow that's so impressive!" Then the robot walks to somebody and sticks out its hand as if it wants to shake that person's hand and it says "Hello!" And as the person touches its hand, it immediately falls over on its back and it moves its arms in the air like a very stiff robot, saying: "ERROR, ERROR." At first, the audience was so impressed by the advanced robot and then it turns out to be a simple, helpless robot.