play(ful teasing)

Playfullness, humour and laughter are fundamental characteristics of being human. Whilst playfulness is more of an attitude we take on when engaging with the world around us, humour is its direct expression, where words, actions, or situations are framed in a way that creates amusement and can consequently provoke laughter. There is a difference between conventional thinking and creative thinking, which is based on incongruity, ambiguity, and bisociation of incompatibles. According to Behrens, humour is dependent on the latter, and it’s quite interesting to think about different creatures’ playfullness and humour.

Humans engage in play for different reasons, whether we’re looking for an outlet for stress, creating and maintaining social bonds or... ‘just for the fun of it’. Afterall, leisure activities and laughter releases endorphins and we all like feeling good. As Ana has mentioned, not only humans but also animals play as a way of entertainment, connecting, learning and growing.

I was thinking about how playful teasing, as a subcategory of humour, can be present in different creatures. Humans often use teasing in their interactions with friends, family or romantic partners, in a lighthearted and fun manner. Teasing can also be seen in animals playing in a good-natured way, or when a cat plays around with a mouse, teasing and tormenting it but not actually killing it (arguably not as considerate to the mouse).

Ana’s blog post discussed some examples of robots mimicking playful behaviour and humour, and I dug in deeper to see if I can find more specific teasing-like behaviour embedded into robots. I found plenty, apparently humans really like being mocked by robots.

the mockingbot

There is a fine line between good-natured, playful teasing, and harmful teasing. It is very context dependent, ie what one person finds funny another may find offending. When engaging in playful, teasing interactions we try our best to be perceptive about the other's sense of humour, boundaries and soft spots. How we joke around with people is very much an invisible negotiation that we do all the time when we are establishing a relationship with others. I think it would be interesting to explore this aspect of play by creating a mockingbot. In contrast to the above pictured ROASTEDby.ai, the mockingbot would learn from its interactions with users and tailor its jokes based on the users responses. When it senses it crossed a line, it apologises, and navigates building a relationship with the users while keeping a playful, teasing attitude at its core. This work could help us learn more about how we as humans relate to each other and negotiate our boundaries when it comes to humour in social interactions.