A robot walks into a bar. It goes CLANG.

Alexa and Siri can tell jokes mined from a humour database, but they donsa国际传媒檛 get them.

Linguists and computer scientists say this is something to consider on April Foolssa国际传媒� Day: Humor is what makes humans special. When people try to teach machines whatsa国际传媒檚 funny, the results are at times laughable but not in the way intended.

sa国际传媒淎rtificial intelligence will never get jokes like humans do,sa国际传媒� said Kiki Hempelmann, a computational linguist who studies humour at Texas A&M University-Commerce. sa国际传媒淚n themselves, they have no need for humour. They miss completely context.sa国际传媒�

And when it comes to humour, the people who study it sa国际传媒� sometimes until all laughs are beaten out of it sa国际传媒� say context is key. Even expert linguists have trouble explaining humour, said Tristan Miller, a computer scientist and linguist at Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany.

sa国际传媒淐reative language sa国际传媒� and humour in particular sa国际传媒� is one of the hardest areas for computational intelligence to grasp,sa国际传媒� said Miller, who has analyzed more than 10,000 puns and called it torture. sa国际传媒淚tsa国际传媒檚 because it relies so much on real-world knowledge sa国际传媒� background knowledge and commonsense knowledge. A computer doesnsa国际传媒檛 have these real-world experiences to draw on. It only knows what you tell it and what it draws from.sa国际传媒�

Allison Bishop , a Columbia University computer scientist who also performs stand-up comedy, said computer learning looks for patterns, but comedy thrives on things hovering close to a pattern and veering off just a bit to be funny and edgy.

Humour, she said, sa国际传媒渉as to skate the edge of being cohesive enough and surprising enough.sa国际传媒�

For comedians thatsa国际传媒檚 job security. Bishop said her parents were happy when her brother became a full-time comedy writer because it meant he wouldnsa国际传媒檛 be replaced by a machine.

sa国际传媒淚 like to believe that there is something very innately human about what makes something funny,sa国际传媒� Bishop said.

Oregon State University computer scientist Heather Knight created the comedy-performing robot Ginger to help her design machines that better interact with sa国际传媒� and especially respond to sa国际传媒� humans. She said it turns out people most appreciate a robotsa国际传媒檚 self-effacing humour.

Ginger, which uses human-written jokes and stories, does a bit about Shakespeare and machines, asking, sa国际传媒淚f you prick me in my battery pack, do I not bleed alkaline fluid?sa国际传媒� in a reference to sa国际传媒淭he Merchant of Venice.sa国际传媒�

Humour and artificial intelligence is a growing field for academics.

Some computers can generate and understand puns sa国际传媒� the most basic humour sa国际传媒� without help from humans because puns are based on different meanings of similar-sounding words. But they fall down after that, said Purdue University computer scientist Julia Rayz.

sa国际传媒淭hey get them sa国际传媒� sort of,sa国际传媒� Rayz said. sa国际传媒淓ven if we look at puns, most of the puns require huge amounts of background.sa国际传媒�

Still, with puns there is something mathematical that computers can grasp, Bishop said.

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Rayz has spent 15 years trying to get computers to understand humour, and at times the results were, well, laughable. She recalled a time she gave the computer two different groups of sentences. Some were jokes. Some were not. The computer classified something as a joke that people thought wasnsa国际传媒檛 a joke. When Rayz asked the computer why it thought it was a joke, its answer made sense technically. But the material still wasnsa国际传媒檛 funny, nor memorable, she said.

IBM has created artificial intelligence that beat opponents in chess and sa国际传媒淛eopardy!sa国际传媒� Its latest attempt, Project Debater , is more difficult because it is based on language and aims to win structured arguments with people, said principal investigator Noam Slonim, a former comedy writer for an Israeli version sa国际传媒淪aturday Night Live.sa国际传媒�

Slonim put humour into the programming, figuring that an occasional one-liner could help in a debate. But it backfired during initial tests when the system made jokes at the wrong time or in the wrong way. Now, Project Debater is limited to one attempt at humour per debate, and that humour is often self-effacing.

sa国际传媒淲e know that humour sa国际传媒� at least good humour sa国际传媒� relies on nuance and on timing,sa国际传媒� Slonim said. sa国际传媒淎nd these are very hard to decipher by an automatic system.sa国际传媒�

Thatsa国际传媒檚 why humour may be key in future Turing Tests sa国际传媒� the ultimate test of machine intelligence, which is to see if an independent evaluator can tell if it is interacting with a person or computer, Slonim said.

Theresa国际传媒檚 still sa国际传媒渁 very significant gap between what machines can do and what humans are doing,sa国际传媒� both in language and humour, Slonim said.

There are good reasons to have artificial intelligence try to learn to get humour, Darmstadt Universitysa国际传媒檚 Miller said. It makes machines more relatable, especially if you can get them to understand sarcasm. That also may aid with automated translations of different languages, he said.

Texas A&Msa国际传媒檚 Hempelmann isnsa国际传媒檛 so sure thatsa国际传媒檚 a good idea.

sa国际传媒淭eaching AI systems humour is dangerous because they may find it where it isnsa国际传媒檛 and they may use it where itsa国际传媒檚 inappropriate,sa国际传媒� Hempelmann said. sa国际传媒淢aybe bad AI will start killing people because it thinks it is funny.sa国际传媒�

Comedian and computer scientist Bishop does have a joke about artificial intelligence: She says she agrees with all the experts warning us that someday AI is going to surpass human intelligence.

sa国际传媒淚 donsa国际传媒檛 think itsa国际传媒檚 because AI is getting smarter,sa国际传媒� Bishop jokes, then she adds: sa国际传媒淚f the AI gets that, I think we have a problem.sa国际传媒�

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Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press

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