Comedy write by artificial intelligence ( AI ) is no laughing matter .

Writing ina blog post , neural electronic web tinkerer Janelle Shane explains how she trained a next - coevals neural meshwork to write one - line drive joke . The results are so unbelievably unfunny , they are hilarious .

“ I train neural networks , a type of machine acquisition algorithm , to write unintentional humor as they shinny to imitate human datasets . Well , I intend the humor , ” Janelle explains .

She started by plugging in a dataset of over 43,000 jokes that use the canonical structure of “ What do you call a something that somethings ? ” or “ How do you something a something ? ” In theory , the neural internet would discover the social organization and relevant content of   the jokes , meaning it could make some gags of its own . However , just as legion undertaking like this have express , they ca n’t seem to get a grip on our   sensation of humour .

Here ’s a pick of the jest :

“ What do you call a cat does it take to have a go at it in a light medulla oblongata ? They could worry the banana . ”

“ What did the new ant say after a dog-iron ?   It was a pirate . ”

“ Why did the monsters change a electric-light bulb ? And a cow the coughing . ”

“ What do you call a pastor cross the route ? He take the chicken . ”

“ What do you call a farts of tea ? He was call in the game of the dry . ”

To further quiz / chagrin the neural web , Janelle then set out to see if the nervous web could successfully land up some classical jokes . The results address for themselves :

“ Why was six afraid of seven?Because he does n’t have a birthday ? ”

“ Why did the volaille cross the road?To screw propeller in a idle bulb . ”

“ What ’s fateful and ashen and blood-red all over?A confuse on the bull ! ”

“ What ’s browned and sticky?A potato , on the space . ”

Unless the neural web is aiming for some kind of surrealist anti - joke , beyond the comprehension of mere humans , then it ’s fair to say the jokes suck .

Nevertheless , if AI is going to become an integral part of human social life , it will certainly be an asset to recognize joke , realize sarcasm , or take irony into account . That ’s whymany researchersare putting energy into it .

So , what is it about humor that is so alien to AI ? Well , body fluid has many interconnectednuances – like setting , timing , content , double - meanings , relevance , delivery , etc –   that it ’s a lot to factor in .

Jason Rutter , a research fellow at Manchester University , toldNew Scientist in 2001 : “ Humour is a very interesting way to calculate at artificial intelligence service because at some point something has to have two meanings , which is not easy to do with a figurer . ”

you’re able to check out some of its equally odd   effort at writing poetry , which   was featured in a study on computer scientific discipline , here .