WEBVTT - Flatus Ex Machina, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:14.720 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:17.239 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:20.560 we're back with part two of our discussion of the 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:22.640 plate a sex Mac and I think that's what we're 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:25.840 gonna call it, the comedy of errors that exist in 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:28.840 the machine and artificial intelligence world. That's right. We were 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:30.600 gonna do it as one episode, but it just went 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:32.440 too long, had to break it up into two. But 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:35.519 it has everything it has, uh, it has humor, it 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:41.320 has theories of humor, it has killer robots, references to RoboCop, 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:44.040 everything you could ask for. One of my favorite things 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:49.800 explaining a joke to death, yes and then yes yeah. Yeah. 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.360 Basically this is a lot of joke explaining. But I 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:54.800 think by the end of it, everyone will still retain 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:57.040 their ability to laugh. All right, So, in thinking about 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:01.840 what's so funny about machine failure, uh, and and even 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:05.520 machine success along a certain you know, parameter of distance 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.840 from what from what it's ultimate level of success would be, 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:11.720 you know, AI, that's sort of succeeding but still isn't 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:15.759 really there. Um, I guess it's worthwhile to look at 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:18.720 what are some of the main theories out there about 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:21.720 what humor is? Like, why do we find anything funny 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.160 not just machines? Yeah, because it becomes increasingly difficult to 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:28.160 really uh nail it down, you know, you come back 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:30.399 to that whole idea of it's funny because it's funny 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:33.360 or you know what when you see it. Uh. This 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:35.280 topic has come up a few times on the show 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:40.120 before um most recently two thousands, seventeens laughing during horror movies. 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:42.440 That was when Christian was on the show and we 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:46.080 talked about you know, what is it about horror movies 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:49.680 like frightening, terrifying films that that elicits laughter from us? 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:51.880 And then there were a few other ones in the past, 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:54.520 The healing power of laughter, the killing joke, funny or Die. 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:56.600 These are all episodes of stuff to blow your mind. 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:59.080 You can you can check out in the vault if 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:02.320 you so desire. Yeah, and so what if you go 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:05.240 and check those out, I'm sure you as you'll probably 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:07.560 found before. There's no one theory of human right and 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:11.480 nobody agrees, but there's sort of a host of competing 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:16.720 theories that I would say aren't even always totally contradicting 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:19.680 of one another. They they sort of partially overlap and 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:23.560 partially contradict one another. Right, Yeah, there's not really a 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:26.840 theory of everything per se, but like each one feels 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:29.720 a little bit right, like each theory is is kind 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:34.320 of fondling the elephant. Yeah, exactly. Uh So, a brief 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:35.919 run through of a few at the top. And there's 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:37.799 no way to explore all the theories of humor. But 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:40.480 if you are the most commonly cited and most popular ones, 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:44.120 one would be the superiority theory. And this is propounded 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:46.680 in some classical works, like in the works of Plato 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:49.640 and Aristotle. This one is actually is kind of nasty, 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:52.440 But sometimes I guess humor is kind of nasty. It 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:55.880 proposes that we laugh when we notice someone is less 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:58.720 fortunate than us in one way or another, and the 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:02.280 laughter comes from our feeling that we occupy a place 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:04.840 of superiority. We sort of deploy it as a form 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:10.360 of scorn on somebody else. And Plato and his Philibus dialogue, 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.320 which is discussing the nature of pleasure and different kinds 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:16.120 of pleasure, like why pleasures of the mind might be 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:20.000 superior to pleasures of the flesh. Plato has Socrates claim 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:23.440 that we laugh at people who do not recognize their 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:26.880 own misfortune, for example, when people are stupid but think 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:30.600 themselves brilliant, or when people are ugly but think themselves 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:33.920 very handsome. And I would say this clearly doesn't cover 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:36.560 all types of humor, Like, you know, what about self 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:40.320 deprecating humor when you can laugh at yourself, But there's 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:44.320 something there that is clearly present in some humor. Yeah, well, 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:46.520 you know, when it comes to self deprecating humor and 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:48.840 laughing at yourself, I think it does make sense when 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:52.320 you consider our abilities to sometimes step outside of ourselves 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:55.080 and see ourselves as a character in a story, sort 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:59.280 of the infectious nature of narrative there. But then also 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:01.440 in the way that we use theory of mind way 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:04.280 too much to try and imagine how others see us. 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:06.520 So maybe, like, if you're trying to roll with this theory, 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:09.520 you'd say that self deprecating humor is almost when we 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:13.720 pretend that we are ourselves someone else and you like 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:17.960 step step back and you scorn a different version of yourself. Yeah, 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:21.160 basically like or you're just kind of imagining how scornful 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.000 other people were being to you because of something you 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:28.159 did or said or thought. Yeah. Um, I mean another 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:29.880 thing I would just say is that unless you're a 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:32.520 horrible person, and maybe you know, Plato and Aristotle were 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:35.799 in some ways very smart but also very horrible people, 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:39.760 unless you're a really bad person, you don't find most 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.560 types of misfortunes of other people funny. I mean, I 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:46.720 do see a certain distinction along Plato's lens in the Philippus, 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:51.080 where like a person just failing to do things that 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.320 you could succeed at is generally not very funny. Like 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:57.240 somebody trying to solve a math problem you could solve 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:00.599 and they can't do it, that's not funny. But like 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.080 if a man proclaims himself to be one of the 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:06.039 greatest brains of all time and then is making basic 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:08.919 errors of logic and math, that's usually funny. Yeah. I 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:10.440 think a lot of it hinges on just you know, 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:12.800 what are the stakes and what sort of misfortune is 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.640 taking place? Like Another sort of example of this is 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:19.880 when someone thinks they are refined about something, uh, and 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.240 maybe they're a little snobbish about it but there, but 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:24.200 it turns out their tastes are not quite as refined 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:27.159 as they thought. Um. I think there was an episode 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:31.000 of Three's Company back you know in the day, in 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:33.919 which a don Knots character is ordering like a fine 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:35.960 scotch at a bar and he's really talking it up 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:37.800 like he knows what he's talking about, exactly what kind 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:40.240 of scotch he wants, and then when the bartender finally 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:42.359 serves it to him, he requests that the rest of 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:45.520 the glass be filled up with root beer, and you know, 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:48.200 it's like, like, that's that's so that's hilarious because he 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:50.719 turns out he's not as as refined as he thought. 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:53.919 But then it's also like we were being snobbish in 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:57.040 making that judgment. Uh, And it's and that's always kind 0:05:57.040 --> 0:06:00.280 of a dick move, right because in anything like whatever 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:02.400 your thing is, that you feel like you're refined and 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:05.919 be at food or drinks or film or literature, like 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:07.839 there was a point in your life when you were 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:10.240 not when you were the person that was the subject 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:13.280 of scorn. And you know, ultimately we're being fair. You 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:15.680 should celebrate that they are at all interested in the 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:17.760 in this thing at all and that they are on 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.839 hopefully on some sort of the same journey that you are, 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.279 but instead we often laugh and said, can you believe 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:27.880 that guy just put root beer all in that sky? 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:32.720 I think that's a really good point. So I don't know. 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.520 I would say I definitely see something going on here 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:37.919 that there are definitely elements of this in humor, but 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:41.040 I don't think it explains all humor. I don't know 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:43.080 if maybe, maybe, maybe not. I don't know if it's 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:45.440 a good fit for why machines are funny, because obviously 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:48.679 machines aren't people exactly, but maybe we sort of see 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.760 them as people when we think they're funny. Yeah, I 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:54.360 think if we if you factor in the actual and 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:58.600 or perceived abilities of AI and robots, either either what 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:01.039 they can actually do or more I think, to the 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:05.359 point what our science fiction and our futurist scenarios have 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:08.760 proposed that they will do or could do one day, 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:11.800 because we end up with this situation where like we 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:15.160 watch our room but do something stupid, and there's it's 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:17.480 hilarious because like, ha, you're never going to terminate or me, 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:20.280 like you can't even you can't even deal with the 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:25.040 uh with this rug or this pile of cat vomit. Well, actually, 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:27.960 though I would say another reason this does kind of 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:30.360 connect is it does kind of connect to Plato's thing 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:34.480 about laughing atself ignorance, because one of the funniest things 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:36.560 that I sort of identified earlier about like the D 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:38.760 two O nine scene and all that, one of the 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:41.600 funniest things about the ways that machines fail is the 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:45.000 way that they are just so completely oblivious to their 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:48.240 own shortcomings, the way they just uh, the way I 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.120 think of it is that they fail and then plow 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.480 straight ahead. You know, they have they have done something 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:58.240 crucially wrong, and they do not appreciate this fact. All right, 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:01.000 let's keep rolling. What are some other theories can discuss? Okay, 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:04.040 next one would be like the nervous energy release theory. 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:06.320 And this is not surprisingly at all a take that 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:09.760 was popular with Freudians. Under this model, laughter is sort 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:13.680 of a pleasurable release of built up psychic tension caused 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:16.880 by fear or apprehension. Uh. And there's a certain kind 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:18.600 of logic to this, right in the way that's a 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:22.560 good Comedians repeatedly build at tension and then dissipated in 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:25.920 various ways. I bet this also goes with the laughing 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:29.200 during horror movies thing, you know, Yeah, for sure, Like you, 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:31.960 you get your tension built up when there's something scary 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:34.160 is about to happen, and then after it's over you 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:36.920 you release the tension and you can laugh. Yeah. Certainly 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:41.160 with with comedians who really leaned into like the awkwardness 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:43.400 and the tension, like say like an Andy Kaufman. You 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:46.480 know where their whole their whole bits or if you 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.120 want to call them bits, where it's really just making 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:52.640 everyone uncomfortable. It's not even about punchlines. It's about just 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:56.240 creating this this tension that at some point has to 0:08:56.280 --> 0:08:57.680 be relief. Like at some point all you can do 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:00.079 is laugh. Yeah, So there's something there. I I this 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:02.640 clearly doesn't account for everything that's funny, you know, it 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:04.719 doesn't account for puns and all that kind of thing. 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:07.400 Uh It, I don't know if I can see a 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:10.760 way that it really fits with why technology failing is 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:12.760 all that funny? No, Yeah, I don't think. I don't 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:16.200 think there's anything particularly insightful about this theory regarding what 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:18.360 we're talking about here today. Okay, here's another one. How 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:23.240 about the adaptation, uh to signal play so that laughter 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:26.640 would be an evolutionary adaptation that occurs when we're engaged 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:30.680 in pretend aggression during play behaviors. It occurs as a 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:34.680 signal to help everybody involved understand the fact the behaviors 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:37.600 like chasing and wrestling and stuff are meant as play 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.400 rather than as genuine aggression or harm. Yeah, this one 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:43.960 I think is important to mention here, if only for 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:46.480 the reason that it touches on the social nature of laughter, 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:51.280 that that laughter is also about communicating with other people 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:56.120 regarding various threats, etcetera. Um. It's also I wonder if 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:59.160 this is one where our storytelling has kind of kind 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:03.199 of led us astray as well, though, because how many 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:10.200 um individuals that actually intends harm are laughing hysterically or sardonically. 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:14.320 Like I'm sure it happens, I mean, and maybe one 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:16.480 or two scenarios even come to mind where someone was 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:19.880 did something horrible and violent and it was seen laughing, 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:23.320 But I don't feel like it probably occurs anywhere as 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:27.160 near as often as it does in movies where villains 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:29.840 are constantly laughing. Be it, you know, an extreme example 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:33.640 like the Joker, or or just any you know, you know, 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:37.760 sardonic villain who just doing maniacally laughs while attempting to 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:40.800 destroy the world. Uh yeah, I mean I would say 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:43.080 this probably does go along with the theory then. I mean, 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:47.280 if it if somebody is laughing while they're actually attempting harm, 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:50.520 there you know their victim is not laughing so like, 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:52.920 so yeah, I think this goes along there. Like and 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:54.840 if they are, then it's like that scene in the 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.480 original um what was a Little Shop of Horrors where 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:00.360 or maybe it was in the remake is well too, 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:04.720 where the uh, the the the the the evil dentist 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:06.480 is going to work on this person and this person 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:09.000 just wants it, They want the pain, and it just 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:11.840 totally messes up his his vibe. Yeah, I haven't thought 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:14.640 how it would accommodate the idea of like villains laughing 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:15.920 while they do what they do. But I mean, I 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:18.839 think this is clearly true in some cases that people 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:22.600 laugh during mock aggressive play behaviors. That dogs wag their 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:26.000 tails during mock aggressive play behaviors. It's like, you know, 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:28.959 they're growling and snarling and tumbling, but you can tell 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:31.679 they're not really fighting because their tails are wagging. And 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:34.000 this is a nice lead into one of one of 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:35.920 my favorite theories, and this is one that we discussed 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:39.000 on the show before in the past, and that's the 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:42.880 benign violation theory. Yeah, and this theory is very popular now. 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:47.319 This theory proposes that humor occurs when one we perceive 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.280 a way in which rules or norms of some kind 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:52.640 are broken. And these rules can be any, you know, 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:56.040 all kinds of things. They can be grammatical rules, they 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:58.960 could be biological classifications, they can be the rules of 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:03.240 making sense, they can be moral norms. Uh. And then second, 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:06.800 we recognize that there has been a violation, but it's 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:10.640 not harmful, it's benign in nature. And then third we 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:13.960 see this contradiction between the fact that there's a violation 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:17.720 and the fact that it's harmless, and that contradiction triggers humor. 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:20.559 Like we said, this one is very popular. It's supported 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:24.040 by some empirical research. Just one example of research and 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:26.080 support that I came across as a two thousand ten 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:30.480 study in Psychological Science by McGraw and Warren called benign 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:33.400 violations making im moral behavior funny and too so. To 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:37.520 just cite one example that they talk about within that study, quote, 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:40.959 people who are more weakly committed to a norm can 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:44.559 recognize the violation, but are less likely to be threatened 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:49.360 or to directly experience the violation's repercussions. Consider a news 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:52.880 story about a church that raffles off a hummer suv 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:56.440 as part of a promotion for its members. Engaging in 0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:59.720 such a secular promotion jeopardizes the sanctity of the church. 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:04.080 End Although most people consider churches sacred, churchgoers should be 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:07.360 more strongly committed to this belief than are people who 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:11.480 do not attend church. So the researchers looked at this 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:14.520 and they found that while churchgoers and non churchgoers alike 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:17.760 were about equally disgusted with this story, you know, the 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:19.520 idea that a church would be trying to get people 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:21.680 to join by giving them a chance to win a car, 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:27.160 non churchgoers more often found the story humorous, and so 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:30.720 that was like non churchgoers to churchgoers finding it humorous 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:34.440 was nine percent to sixty two percent. So the idea 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:37.800 is that non churchgoers saw this as a benign violation 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:41.000 and thus funny, and churchgoers saw it as a real 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:44.400 harmful violation and thus not funny. Yeah, and I think 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:47.240 that's something that's important to keep in mind. And you know, 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:49.600 when when looking at the benign violation theory is that 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:53.720 how ultimately subjective it is going to be. And of 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:57.400 course that is comedy as well, so it matches up 0:13:57.400 --> 0:13:59.720 in that regard. Right, It depends on whether you actually 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:02.400 see something as a violation and whether you actually see 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:04.920 something as harmful or not. Now, there are different ways 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:07.120 you could play around with the definitions and of this 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:10.080 theory to like, like, you could make it very elastic 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:12.840 to accommodate a lot of stuff, or you could more 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:17.360 narrowly tailor it. I would say one problem potentially with 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:21.120 it is that lots of things that are benign violations 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.480 aren't funny at all. Uh. An example I came up 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:26.640 with is, imagine you are not supposed to take home 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:30.080 office supplies, but you do you take home a pin. Well, 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:32.600 that's a violation of the rules. It doesn't it's not 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:36.480 really harmful, it's benign, and it's not really funny. Right. 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:38.760 But on the other hand, I would I think the 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:41.680 counter argument here would be, okay, taking one pin home 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:43.880 from work, like that's I do that all the time, 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:46.080 most of us do. It's one thing to take a 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:49.520 pin home, even accidental, accidentally, take one home to you know, 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:52.560 purposely take one home. But what have we upped it? 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:55.480 What have instead of accidentally taking a pin home from work, 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.720 you accidentally took all the pins home from work. That's 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:00.680 funny now that it was getting into you know a 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:03.600 little more. And I'm not saying that there's it's the 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:06.480 funniest gag of all time, but certainly there's more room 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:09.000 for hilarity in this scenario. Well, that starts to be 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:14.080 more like a machine type comedic mistake because it's so uh, 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:16.560 it's so over the top. It seems to kind of 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:19.680 like not just violate a norm but just plows straight 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:22.720 through it and goes all the way down right where. 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:25.000 I guess another way that would work is if one 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:28.720 meant to steal something of greater value, like one intended 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:34.360 to to um to perpetrate some greater violation of office norms, 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:36.080 and then in the end you only stole a pin, 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:38.120 but even in a done land as well, and it 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:39.760 really needs to be a box of pins or all 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:41.920 the pins. Yeah, I guess you could say. I mean, 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:44.560 I think you could probably play around with exactly how 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:48.040 you define the terms of benign violation to maybe accommodate 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.320 those counter examples. I would say also though lots of 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:53.720 things that are funny too, people can feel like they're 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:56.160 not at all benign, and like think of videos of 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:59.200 people falling off skateboards and smashing their faces or the 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:02.680 crotches and the handrails and brick walls and stuff. People 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:05.360 find these things quite funny, and people can get really 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:08.600 hurt in them. Yeah, I think with with that, I 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:11.120 think part of it is that we generally see confirmation 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:14.040 that they survived, or if we don't see confirmation that 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.520 they survived whatever, they're horrible, you know, skateboarding accident was, 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:20.160 then we at least don't see them going to the 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:22.880 e er, you know, like we have no additional information 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:25.800 to go on, no additional context, and we can just 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:29.480 kind of assume that they were okay. So, and I 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:32.840 also was wondering about this. I wondered what extent comedic 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:37.360 interpretations of slapstick injuries in which harm generally doesn't extend 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:41.840 beyond the punch line. Um, if these program us to 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:46.080 to make these kind of comedic interpretations. Uh, for instance, 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:48.080 you know, when you think about comedic violence, you think 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:51.720 about the Three Stooges, and certainly they're just always brutalizing 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:54.280 each other and then they're fine, and then they're back 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:57.640 for another adventure. They're fine. You don't worry about their health. 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:02.200 Take a good old fashioned three Stooges fingerpoke. Um, you 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:03.880 know we have in the in the eye do you 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:05.679 have two fingers and then you go right for the 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:08.520 eyes and if nobody gets the block up, bam, there's 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:12.520 like as more of a blank noise, right. So yeah, 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:16.200 so when the Stooges do it, uh, it's hilarious, right, 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:20.400 there's a lot of slapstick hilarity with with the double fingerpoke. 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:24.040 But and then likewise you look at something like pro wrestling, 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:27.800 in pro wrestling, which of course is this like sports 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:32.760 theater thing. Uh, the fingerpoke is a comedy spot, you know, 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:34.920 it's it's if someone goes for the double eye poke, 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:37.520 it's going to be a moment of hilarity as well. 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:40.520 But if somebody does it in a basketball game, that's 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:43.159 not really funny, right, or or if someone does it 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:47.080 in most if not all combat sports, it is it 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:50.280 is a band maneuver. Like generally, if you're going for 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:54.080 somebody's eyes, like that's either it's either really evil or 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:57.040 it's a move of desperation. Yeah, this does certainly make 0:17:57.040 --> 0:17:59.840 that to whatever extent the benign violation theory is true, 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:04.320 it's highly context dependent and and maybe the truth there, 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:07.240 if there is something to this theory is that um 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:11.520 is that the context makes us determine what's benign and 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:14.320 what's not right, and it's gonna be highly dependent on 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:17.520 the culture you're in, the time you live in. I mean, certainly, 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:20.120 just thinking of workplace humor, there are a lot of 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:24.760 violations today that are serious that may have been perceived 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:27.760 as more benign in days past, or as or seen 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:30.960 as not violations at all. Oh yeah, this go back 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:34.639 to like the nineteen eighties, and like workplace sexual harassment 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:38.400 was a common like sitcom gag at the time. It's 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:41.200 just like, oh, it's hilarious, you know, he's he's harassing 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:44.480 Tina again. Uh, And now like that's not really funny 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:46.600 at all anymore because we see that, I think, I 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:49.840 think because people see that as a more genuine violation, 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:52.440 not as something that's just a harmless you can wave 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:54.560 it off, that's just ted being ted. So how do 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:59.760 you feel about about benign violation and neural networks? Well, strangely, 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:02.840 I do see part of a fit here. Um, because 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:06.840 I along the lines of the Church suv example. The 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:10.840 more serious and reverent the context in which the technology 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.280 is presented, the funnier it is when it fails. I 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:16.760 think about like ED two oh nine. This the scene 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:19.040 is sort of made by the fact that Dick Jones 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.159 and all the biz bros Are proudly boasting about this 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:25.760 marvelous new technology that will be the future, and then 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:29.360 it fails in such a spectacular way. I think in general, 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:32.280 the failures of AI are much funnier when they're presented 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:36.159 within a context of us knowing about people who believe 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:40.280 in AI messiahs and you know AI Basilisks and Satan's 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:43.400 and all that who who uh see this great future 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:47.359 of of power and dominance among Aiyes, watching them mess 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:51.640 up in hilarious ways becomes all the more poignant and perfect. 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:54.119 All right, time to take a quick break. Well, we 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:59.000 will be right back. Thank alright, we're back. So one 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:02.199 more theory is the in congruity resolution theory. This is 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:04.760 a theory that's had various forms over the years, for 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:09.080 example advocated by Manuel Kant and others, but essentially the 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:13.080 idea here is that there is an incongruity between expectations 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:17.639 and reality. Laughter occurs when we realize this incongruity can 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:21.479 be resolved, and this is there's clearly a strong element 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:24.240 of this in lots of humors. Again, what joke involves 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:26.640 a set up and then a punch line, and most 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:30.120 often the set up sets you up to expect one 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:33.520 type of thing. The punch line subverts your expectations. So 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:36.280 that's clearly there. But then again, there are lots of 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:39.480 things that are surprising and turn our expectations on their heads, 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:42.399 and they're not funny. Yeah, like we incongruity has to 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:45.160 be novel. Yeah, you know, it can't be a situation 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:47.600 where I thought I was buying mozzarella, but I really 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:51.480 got monster. That's not that. That's really not funny. Now, 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:53.400 it would be funny if you thought you were buying 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:56.760 mozzarella you got home and it was like rat eggs, 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:00.840 especially because rats don't lay eggs. Yeah, it's like that. Yeah, 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:03.800 that would be that would be a lot more of hilarious. 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:07.080 One different but somewhat similar theory. I was reading about that. 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:09.359 I'd like to read this book now that I know 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:12.879