Project Name: Humorous Agent for Humorous Acronyms

Abbreviation: HAHAcronym

Start date: May 1, 2001

End date: February 27, 2003

Project Description:

This project is about introducing computational humour capabilities in future interfaces. Apart from a scientific motivation for the study of humour, there is a more practical perspective. The aim of this project is to assess the state of the art and application prospects, develop a first demonstrator and, out of this, create the basis for a substantial, industrially attractive project about humour. The main goal of the project is the realisation of an acronym generator and re-analyser as a proof of concept in a focused but unrestricted context. In order to implement this system, we will develop general tools for humorous systems. A fundamental tool is an incongruity detector/generator: concretely we need to be able to detect semantic mismatches between word meaning and sentence meaning (i.e. in our case the acronym and its context). The working demonstrator will help to establish the feasibility and the potential impact of the enterprise. Work description: The work to be carried out will include the following. - An assessment of application opportunities, concerning the market but also the structure of products. An assessment of what has been done and an evaluation of what can be done in a short to medium term. - Acquisition of available resources, development of some humour resources (in particular WordNet-based navigating algorithms, a rule database of semantic field oppositions with humorous potential). A fundamental tool is an incongruity detector/generator: concretely we need to be able to detect semantic mismatches between word meaning and sentence meaning. For all tools, particular attention will be put on reusability.

• The realisation of an acronym generator and re-analyser as a proof of concept in a focused but unrestricted context.
• Evaluation of the prototype.
• Formulation of concrete ideas about the realisation of a larger and more ambitious final system, involving industrial partners. Some possible scenarios include: - educational software for children could be based on the idea of machine-assisted joke generation, thus helping the user explore word-meanings;
• a system that uses humour to help promotion and attention focalisation in an electronic commerce environment.

Project Duration and Funding

Partners:

• Istituto Trentino di Cultura (ITC)

Project-coordinator

The following HMI-member(s) is/are coordinator of this Project

Dirk Heylen

Publications