Why Can’t Robots Understand Sarcasm?

Can we ever expect artificial intelligence capable of sarcasm? The fictional examples are tantalizing: In Spike Jonze’s Her, Scarlett Johansson’s Samantha is more cheeky than her human companion. And in the Star Wars universe, R2-D2 is able to deliver acerbic gibes through just beeps and whistles.

According to Noah Goodman, an assistant professor at Stanford University specializing in psychology, computer science, and linguistics, humans will first need to firm up our own understanding of sarcasm. “Before you can program a computer to do something cool, you have to understand what the cool thing is,” Goodman said. “We’re sort of only at the beginning of understanding what nuanced communication actually is.”

Sarcasm is deceptively complex, agrees Elisabeth Camp, an associate professor at Rutgers University who studies the philosophy of language and mind. “There are all these issues [like]… social dynamics and power dynamics,” she said, labeling sarcasm as something “deeply, deeply human.” (Kevin Zawacki, The Atlantic)

(image: lilivanili/Flickr)