Prospects for Computational Humour

Humour is a valid subject for research in artiicial intelligence, as it is one of the more complex of human behaviours. Some have also argued that an understanding of humour could lead to more congenial human-computer interfaces, although this is more contentious. Although philosophers and others have discussed humour for centuries, it is only very recently that computational work has begun in this eld, so the state of the art is still rather basic. There is no accepted theory of any form of humour, and even the methodology of exploring humour computationally has yet to be clariied. Nevertheless the area is a broad and exciting one.