Digital, Computer, and Science Humor

by Don and Alleen Nilsen

[email protected] & [email protected]

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 Robots Dancing “The Mashed Potato” on 60 Minutes:

Computers Dancing “The Mashed Potato” on 60 Minutes:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=290614405793494

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 Precurser to the Computer and the Robot:
Pierre Jacquet-Droz--1774 in Switzerland

Precurser to the Computer, and Robot: Pierre Jacquet-Droz, Switzerland, 1774:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OehTO9l1Hp8
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 Script-Model Grammar
Victor Raskin is a linguist, and linguists tend to deal with one sentence at a time.
Script Model Grammar allows linguists to deal with larger texts.

Raskin talks about the structure of a joke by saying that everything in the set-up
of the joke is ambiguous but primed in the direction of the mundane.

What the punch line of a joke does is to change the priming of the joke from the
mundane to the dramatic, or scatological, etc.

At this point the audience is able to see that the entire joke—set-up and punch line
—have been ambiguous, and that the punch line has just changed the priming.

Because the punch line allows the audience to see all of the ambiguity of the joke
(both mundane and dramatic), the punch line is very epiphanal.

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 Teaching a Computer to Speculate

Using the techniques of Script-Model Grammar as developed by Victor Raskin,

Salvatore Attardo and others, develop a number of mundane scripts for your
computer, as follows:
Eating at a restaurant
Getting a haircut
Getting dressed in the morning
Going to a concert
Going to a movie
Telling a joke or a story
Traveling by car
Traveling by plane
Traveling by subway
Traveling by train
Etc.
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 Tell your computer the details of the script in terms of
a sequence of behaviors. For example, consider the
script of “eating at a restaurant.”
1. You get hungry. But what if one or more of the
2. You look for a restaurant. sequence of behaviors is missing?
3. You find a restaurant.
4. You walk into the restaurant. Or what if one or more behaviors are
5. You’re seated by someone. added to the sequence?
6. The server brings you a menu.
The computer can then ask, “Why
7. You look at the menu.
didn’t he leave a tip? Or
8. You order your meal.
9. You eat your meal.
“Why did he take his bike into the
10. Someone brings you a bill. restaurant?”
11. You pay the bill.
12. You leave a tip. The computer has been taught how to
13. You leave the restaurant. speculate.

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 Script Grammar for Longer Texts and AI

What Victor Raskin did for jokes (small texts), Salvatore Attardo did for larger
texts (paragraphs, chapters plays, novels, trilogies, etc.).

And rather than just dealing with the set-up, the punch-line, and the epiphany of
the joke, Attardo developed ways of dealing with double entendre, embodiment,
irony, metaphor, metonymy, paradox, parody, sarcasm, satire, synecdoche,
allegory, and other types of “language play.”

An even more important contribution of Script-Model Grammar, is its

applications to the field of Artificial Intelligence.

This brings us to the contributions of Christian Hempelmann, Anton Nijholt,

Dallin Oaks, Leo Obrst, Maxim Petrenko, Graeme Ritchie, Julia Taylor,
Willibald Ruch, Oliviero Stock, Carlo Strapparava, Igor Suslov, and Tony Veale.

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 Note that the term “Script Model Grammar” comes from such terms as
“Play Script” and “Movie Script.”

To further explore the applications of Script-Model Grammar, contact the

following:

Salvatore Attardo [email protected] , Christian Hempelmann

[email protected] , Dallin Oaks [email protected], Anton Nijholt
[email protected] , Leo Obrst [email protected] , Maxim Petrenko
[email protected] , Victor Raskin [email protected] , Graeme Ritchie
[email protected] , Julia Taylor [email protected] , Willibald Ruch
[email protected] , Oliviero Stock [email protected] , Carlo Strapparava
[email protected] , Igor Suslov [email protected] ,

Tony Veale [email protected] .

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 Inscrutable Comics on the Internet

Inscrutable Comics on the Internet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffvgpNdNJ38

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 A Joke about Numbers:
Shel Silverstein’s “Smart”
My dad gave me one dollar bill
'Cause I'm his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
'Cause two is more than one!
 
And then I took the quarters
And traded them to Lou
For three dimes -- I guess he don't know
That three is more than two!

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Just then, along came old blind Bates
And just 'cause he can't see
He gave me four nickles for my three dimes,
And four is more than three!
 
And I took the nickels to Hiram Coombs
Down at the seed-feed store,
And the fool gave me five pennies for them,
And five is more than four!
 
And then I went and showed my dad,
And he got red in the cheeks
And closed his eyes and shook his head--
Too proud of me to speak!
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 Amazing Technology in a French Gourmet Restaurant:

Amazing Technology in a French Gourmet Restaurant:

https://www.facebook.com/100005532796520/videos/1495793517281727

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Jokes for Scientists:
https://medium.com/@joshuashawnmichaelhehe/highbrow-humor-427fae40bdbc

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Oregon State University Develops a Robot Who Does Standup Comedy:
https://pamplinmedia.com/pt/11-features/467161-378539-why-did-the-robot-cross-the-
road-to-tell-a-data-driven-joke-

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Computer-Assisted Translation of Humorous Wordplay (Tristan Miller):
https://punderstanding.ofai.at/

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And look how far we have moved
away from books,

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 MY BLACKBERRY’S NOT WORKING:

My Blackberry’s not working:

http://www.flixxy.com/my-blackberry-is-not-working.htm
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The First Digital Communication—
With Real Digits

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 The QWERTYUIOP Principle
It is commonly believed that the QWERTYUIOP keyboard was invented in
order to slow down the typist and keep the keys from jamming.

Actually, only the first part of this belief is true. QWERTYUIOP was
invented not to slow down the typist but rather to speed up the keyboard
by keeping the keys from jamming.

When typewriters were first invented, the letters that were used most
often frequently jammed together, so the QWERTYUIOP keyboard was
designed to separate these letters from each other.

Nevertheless, today, whenever something is designed to slow us down

rather than speed it up, this design is said to be following the
QWERTYUIOP principle.

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Millenials and Beyond

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 Everybody is now a news photographer for
Hurricanes, Meteors, Floods, Police Actions…

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and how far we’ve come with photos.

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 Texting
With a cell phone, we are able to escape
the moment.

This increases our social audience, and

allows us to transcend.

But is it always a good thing?

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We’ve gone from talking to texting
--at the game
--and at dinner

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--at the Art Museum
--and in the car.

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BRB: Be Right Back!

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 Memes
Memes allow us to combine pictures with
text.

The text in the top part of the meme gives

us the historical context.

The text in the lower part of the meme

gives us the ironic spin.
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“Lazy College Student” meme

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Philosoraptor Memes are named after
Velociraptor dinosaurs.

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Photo Bombing

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A New York Times photo of students in BYU’s computer animation program
Can you spot the photo-bomber?

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Is this a photo-bomber?

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 Changes in society, religion, and technology
cause anxieties that inspire new movements.
• FRANKENSTEIN became popular when scientists began
experimenting with real bodies.

• In the 1800s American “Tall Tales” were humorous

extensions of the strange things people found as they
moved west.

• And in the 1970s, urban legends made fun of people facing

new and scary technologies, including microwave ovens,
organ transplants, and a lack of privacy.

• Zombies are now popular because of medical advances,

aging populations and fears of biological warfare and
pandemics.
•

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 The Vine Application
• Vine is an application that allows users to take and post short video
clips.

• The teller of verbal jokes has the luxury of taking their time in order to
provide the information needed to understand the joke. This is
especially true in a shaggy dog story.

• But Vines are 7 seconds long, so they require careful cutting and
editing.

• They also require the use of stereotypes, so that the information can
be presented quickly.

• Editorial cartoons also follow the 7-second rule for the same reasons.

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FUNNY VINES:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y73jjPOiePc

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFL9omud1hQ

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Selfies at Oscars and Tour de France

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 As new concepts emerge, we recycle old words and
phrases from fantasy and science fiction.

Godzillagram = a huge packet

UTSL = Use The Source Luke
Munchkins = teenage techies (from Star Wars)

Wabbit = a mischievous Obi-Wan-Code = Off by One

program code from HAL (IBM) in 2001, A
Space Odyssey
Sorcerer’s Apprentice Mode =
an indefinitely repeating Tree Killers = paper wasters
program from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of
the Rings
42 = the meaning of life, truth,
and everything Code Police or Net Police =
thought police from Orwell’s
A Trojan Horse = a program 1984
infiltrating a computer
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Millennials and Their Careers:

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People can be addicted to Facebook, Twitter,
Vine, Tumblr and especially Video Games.

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Call and Response on Facebook

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 More Call and Response on Facebook

ELLEN DEGENERES: “In Your Facebook”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvjIs-fBFok

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Texting

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• Peter Steiner’s 1993 cartoon in the New
Yorker showed two dogs in front of a
computer. One is remarking “On the
Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”

• Even Steiner was amazed at how

popular it became.

• It not only reflected, but helped shape

world-wide attitudes.
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 We like making fun of computers.

I have a spelling checker.

It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Common spell-check mistakes include:

Untied States, Worth nothing that, and Fraud
for Freud.
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THE THE IMPOTENCE OF PROOFREADING (TAYLOR MALI):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_rwB5_3PQc

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 These sentences are ambiguous; computers
don’t provide “real world knowledge”

•A cheesecake was on the table. It was delicious and

was soon eaten.

•SIGN IN A CHURCH: For those of you who have

children and don’t know it, we have a nursery
downstairs.

•NEWSPAPER AD: Our bikinis are exciting; they are

simply the tops.

•It’s time to make smoking history!

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 Challenges in the Digital World

• People want to create and post their own

material.

• What goes out on the Internet has probably

not had an editor, a director, or a producer.

• This results in originality and spontaneity,

and also in questionable materials.

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 Internet Shows

JAKE AND AMIR:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHIWsvfwcRw

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INTERNET SHOWS: “EQUALS THREE”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EwSAzHj8VM
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 Recent firings because of the digital
broadcasting of inappropriate humor…
• In October 2013, White House staffer Jofi Joseph was fired
for posting “snarky” and mean-spirited tweets under the
handle of @natsecwonk.

• These tweets were a mix of leaking sensitive national

security information, criticizing the White House policies,
and insulting the personalities and appearances of national
security officials.

• In his own “apology” or maybe “defense,” Joseph called it a

“parody account,” and said he was only “saying what
everyone else…thought.”
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 Tumblr
• Tumblr is a website
that is part social
Tumblr’s Mighty Pixie
network and part (Teh Mighteh Pixeh)
microblogging.

• On Tumblr can be
found list jokes,
puns, parody,
sarcasm and call
and response.
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Tumblr Humor

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Pinterest Snow Humor

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Pinterest Haiku

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 Video Game Irony:
Smiling Children as Villains

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Compare Cartman on Southpark

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 MOOCS & Viral Videos
“Gangnam Style” has been viewed by over 2 billion viewers on Youtube

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 Digital Humor Websites
ANIMATOR VS. ANIMATION II:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/689540/animator_vs_animation_2/

BYU Computer Animation Team:

http://nyti.ms/ZfAFon

CLEVERBOT:
http://cleverbot.com/

THE MATHEMATICS OF HUMOR:

https://uofa.ualberta.ca/science/science-news/2015/november/the-
snunkoople-effect

MONTY PYTHON “SPAM”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE

TOP 50 POPULAR TEXT & CHAT ACRONYMS (NETLINGO):

http://www.netlingo.com/top50/popular-text-terms.php

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 Geeks, Nerds, and Dorks

Geeks, Nerds, and Dorks:

https://biggeekdad.com/2019/01/geek-or-nerd/
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Science World Smiling Face Cosmic Eye:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haKMQBU5HVA

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Humor in Mathematics Teaching:
https://sites.google.com/view/humatproject/home

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 2023 Humor Conferences
The 33rd Conference of the International Society for Humor Studies
University of Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, July 3-7, 2023. The 2023 ISHS
conference will be hosted by Patrice Oppliger at Boston University
[email protected] [email protected] . For Conference updates, visit the
ISHS website at http://www.humorstudies.org .

The Thirteenth Humor Research Conference will be held in Commerce,

Texas, March 31-April 1, 2023. The deadline for paper submissions is January 15,
2023. Paper submissions should be sent to [email protected] . For more
information, contact the Conference Organizers at [email protected] or visit the
conference website at https://tamuc.edu/humor .

2023 AATH Conference & Humor Academy

April 27-30, 2023 | DoubleTree by Hilton Phoenix Mesa
www.aath.org/humor-conference

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 More 2023 Humor Conferences
2023: Annual Conference on Play Therapy in Florence, Italy (Laura Vagnoli):
https://www.meyer.it/didattica-e-formazione/formazione/775-play-therapy

2023: Twenty-Ninth Annual AHSN Colloquium University of Sydney,

Australia, February 6-7 (online) and February 9-10 (in person), 2023:
Visit the AHSNwebsite at https://ahsnhumourstudies.org/events .

July 10-12, 2023: Empire State College in Saratoga Springs, New York
will host a Comedy/Humor Studies Conference:
https://humorinamericaconference.wordpress.com/

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 Summer, 2021 International Society for Humor Studies Webinars:
Martin Lampert, Patrice Oppliger, Delia Chiaro, Christian Hempleman,
Will Noonan, Wladislaw Chlopicki, Villy Tsakona, Jennifer Hofmann,
Thomas Ford, Don Nilsen, Sammy Basu
http://www.humorstudies.org/

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 Fall 2022 ISHS Executive Board Meeting:
Martin Lampert, Don Nilsen, Patrice Oppliger
Villy Tsakona, Christian Hempelmann, Delia Chiaro
Sharon Lockyer, Gil Greengross

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 12/9/2022 ISHS Executive Board Meeting:
Martin Lampert, Don Nilsen, Christian Hemplemann
Dorota Brzowska, Patrice Oppliger, Delia Chiaro
Sharon Lockyer, Villy Tsakona

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 Nilsen, Alleen and Don. The Language of Humor: An Introduction.
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
www.cambridge.org/core/books/language-of-humor/B37E80D6A21DB3A2
E344A4061D996D9C

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Don and Alleen Nilsen AATH Humor PowerPoints:
https://aath.memberclicks.net/don-and-alleen-power-points

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