Scientists try to teach AI-powered robots to laugh to teach them empathy

Artificial intelligence is set to be involved in more and more vital activities, from banking to medicine. Scientists are now developing an AI system that aims to recreate these nuances of humor by laughing in the right way at the right time. Scientists at Kyoto University are training an AI-powered robot to laugh. The team behind the laughing robot is called Erica. This is, of course, a difficult project that could take decades to become a reality. Humans respond to an inviting laugh within half a second on average. Further, for robots to laugh convincingly with humans, they must be able to tell when a person wants such an interaction.

Researchers teaching robots to laugh:

The AI-enabled creature can copy human behavior but somehow feels unnatural and alien in interactions. The system could improve natural conversations between people and AI systems. The team tested out Erica's sense of humor by creating four short dialogues for it to share with a person, integrating the new shared-laughter algorithm into existing conversation software

Scientists gathered training data from more than 80 speed-dating dialogues between male university students and the robot, which was initially teleoperated by four female amateur actors. This data was then used to train a machine learning system to decide whether to laugh and to choose the appropriate type. The ostensible reason to make machines cognizant of how people laugh is to teach them empathy. This will make them more human.

Robots should actually have a distinct character, and Scientists think that they can show this through their conversational behaviors, such as laughing, eye gaze, gestures, and speaking style. Because laughter is such a crucial part of what it means to be human, Scientists won't have convincing artificial intelligence until our machines can laugh along with robots.