Scientists Are Teaching Robots When And How To Laugh Like A Human

The target language was Japanese and the shared laughter system was developed with the humanoid robot called Erica in mind. Erica is an Android that made headlines for its so-called beautiful looks and method acting chops that landed her a lead role in a $70 million sci-fi film. As part of the latest research, Erica sat with a human subject and emulated a speed dating scenario, with all conversations lasting roughly 10 to 15 minutes.

Each conversation was annotated — complete with the laughter — and was then fed into a system to create a custom model. It starts with laughter detection and then moves to the shared laughter prediction part. This is where the system decides if it should laugh or not. If the answer is affirmative, the AI model will next decide which laughter type to pick between a mirthful laugh and a social chuckle. Published in the “Frontiers in Robotics and AI” journal, the research paper concludes that “the perception of shared laughter is influenced by the scenario and type of laugh used and emphasize the importance of proper empathetic laughs.” 

The team is now hoping that the underlying framework is experimented with using more languages than just Japanese and with a bigger sample dataset to improve robot-human interactions. The research is promising, but Kyoto University professor Dr. Koji Inoue still believes that it might take another decade or two before “we can finally have a casual chat with a robot like we would with a friend.”