The Art of Conversational Laughter

Researchers at Kyoto University have set out to teach their AI system, the art of conversational laughter. They gather training data for more than 80 speed dating dialogues between male university students and a robot who was initially teleoperated by four female amateur actors. This data was then used to train machine learning systems to decide whether to laugh and to choose the appropriate type type. It might feel socially awkward to mimic a small chuckle, but empathetic to join in with a hearty laugh.