No, I am not talking about it making funny noises. Although if you want to change the sounds it makes, here are some articles on that, and a place where you can find some free sounds to use. Vista, WinXP/Win2k, free sounds. (This can make a great joke on others. Listen to this to see what happened when I changed a roommate’s error message.)

This article shows us that our computers don’t tell us jokes because we haven’t taught them how to yet. For those who don’t wish to walk through the code, an explanation in the article gives a short break down of what it does.

The program is written LISP, which is mostly used in the programming of artificial intelligence programs. It forms a joke/pun in the form of: What happens when you cross x with y? And then gives you a comedic answer.

First thing the program has to learn are words. But it isn’t just as simple as uploading a dictionary of words. We also have to tell the program what words relate to each other, and if any of them sounds like each other.

Example:

• a port on a computer can be a serial port, so we have a relationship between ‘port’ and ’serial’.
• frosted flakes are a cereal, so there is a relation between ‘frosted flakes’ and ‘cereal’.
• ‘Serial’ and ‘cereal’ sound like each other.

Which led the program to create one of my new favorite jokes (from the article).

WHAT DO YOU GET WHEN YOU CROSS A PORT WITH FROSTED FLAKES?
I don’t know, but it’s serial

So while this program can come up with some fabulous one liners, I don’t see it taking over the joke telling scene. Why don’t you go tell some fabulous jokes to make sure we stay ahead of mechanical joke machines!