OMG UR Funny! Computer-Aided Humor with an Application to Chat

In this paper we explore Computer-Aided Humor (CAH), where a computer and a human collaborate to be humorous. CAH systems support people’s natural desire to be funny by helping them express their own idiosyncratic sense of humor. Artificial intelligence research has tried for years to create systems that are funny, but found the problem to be extremely hard. We show that by combining the strengths of a computer and a human, CAH can foster humor better than either alone. We present CAHOOTS, an online chat system that suggests humorous images to its users to include in the conversation. We compare CAHOOTS to a regular chat system, and to a system that automatically inserts funny images using an artificial humor-bot. Users report that CAHOOTS made their conversations more enjoyable and funny, and helped them to express their personal senses of humor. Computer-Aided Humor offers an example of how systems can algorithmically augment human intelligence to create rich, creative experiences.