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“Funny How?” A Serious Look at Humor in Conversational Agents

Zargham, Nima; Avanesi, Vino; Reicherts, Leon; Scott, Ava Elizabeth; Rogers, Yvonne; Malaka, Rainer; (2023) “Funny How?” A Serious Look at Humor in Conversational Agents. In: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Conversational User Interfaces. (pp. pp. 1-7). ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) Green open access

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Abstract

Conversational agents are rapidly advancing in terms of their capabilities and human likeness - both of which are intended to enhance the user experience and engagement. One human quality that can potentially increase trust and likeability is humor. However, what is considered humorous and what is not depends on many contextual and personal factors that are not only difficult for machines to detect, but even humans are still struggling to understand them. This makes training AI to be humorous highly challenging. But is this due only to the technical limitations? In this provocation paper, we discuss the hindrances to utilizing humor in commercial conversational agents and propose addressing this topic from a social and political perspective.

Type: Proceedings paper
Title: “Funny How?” A Serious Look at Humor in Conversational Agents
Event: CUI '23: ACM conference on Conversational User Interfaces
ISBN-13: 9798400700149
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1145/3571884.3603761
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1145/3571884.3603761
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.
Keywords: Humor, Conversational Agents, Voice Assistants, Smart Speakers, Computational Humor
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > UCL Interaction Centre
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Computer Science
URI: https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10176958
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