NSF Award in Computer & Information Science & Engineering
Project: Computational Creativity: Building a Model of Machine - Generated Humor
Start Date: June 1, 2009
Total Award Amount: $712,883
How the results of this project will benefit society:
Computational creativity has been a goal of artificial intelligence since nearly its inception. But while many interesting models have been developed, and some of these have produced interesting creative works, most have been built on foundations that either don't scale, or don't easily scope across different domains, or both. This project will create intelligent comedic performance agents and deploy them both on- and off-line for the enjoyment and illumination of everyday citizens. Secondly, this research will attract, develop, and produce an equally new type of artificial intelligence (AI) researcher whose vision of the mind scopes beyond the confines of a single machine. In particular, the goal is to attract a broader set of students (including the underrepresented group of women in engineering) from communications studies and theater, who want to do research on the machine as a device for communication and creative expression made possible and supported by the mediation of intelligent systems. This is a crucial step in the development of AI as a field, drawing in a next generation of creative and innovative thinkers who will be able to bring new light into the world of semantics and inference while building artifacts with artistic power.
Principal investigator:
Kristian Hammond
electrical engineering
and computer science
McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science