Posted on 09/15/2010 7:31:17 AM PDT by Sad Hill
Northwestern University professor, Kristian Hammond, received more than $700,000 in federal stimulus money to develop software that tells jokes. Hammond says its serious work.
Understanding what makes humor, what makes irony, what makes interesting juxtapositions, to understand what that means [then] actually create it," said Hammond.
WLS-TV reports, The material generated so far is not exactly killer standup material, and Hammond's critics certainly aren't laughing. Senator John McCain singled out Hammond's project, calling it a joke machine one of many examples of wasteful spending.
Hammond received the funding after he applied to the National Science Foundation, beating out dozens of other applicants.
"The same technology could be used to write scientific papers," said Hammond. "We have nothing but anticipation that this will actually create more and more jobs."
(Excerpt) Read more at sadhillnews.com ...
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Sadly, this is not a joke. I looked up the NSF grant number a few days ago when this was first posted.
It does, however, remind me of “1984” in which machines did most of the “creative” work, automatically churning out “novels” and other low brow cultural trash to entertain the proletariat drones.
I do think Orwell got this part wrong, though he was close, since it’s actually drones producing most of the low brow cultural trash on TV, magazines, movies, etc.
Can’t top this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2588215/posts?page=1
I called two Congressmen and Di Fi Feinstein about this yesterday. I told them the info was on Drudge. LOL Didn’t want to waste my time on Boxer as she will be gone soon. Good riddance to anti-American rubbish.
I am not laughing ....I want my tax dollars back
Thanks for the backup!
Unfortunately, no. :(
Excellent quote!
Sadly, no.
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