“Maybe bad AI will start killing people because it thinks it is funny”

There’s still “a very significant gap between what machines can do and what humans are doing,” both in language and humor, Slonim said.

There are good reasons to have artificial intelligence try to learn to get humor, Darmstadt University’s 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&M’s Hempelmann isn’t so sure that’s a good idea.

“Teaching AI systems humor is dangerous because they may find it where it isn’t and they may use it where it’s inappropriate,” Hempelmann said. “Maybe bad AI will start killing people because it thinks it is funny.”