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…
