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

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.