Google Home And Amazon Alexa To Get Sense Of Humor Ala ‘The Onion’

Although it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the future will feature artificial intelligence more and more, there is still much to be desired about current examples that their makers are trying to address. With regards to Google Home and Amazon Alexa for example, their respective parents are trying to inject a bit of humanity in them by using the services of writers from “The Onion” and even Pixar studios.

Now, AI or robots are not exactly known for their sense of humor. Just take the Terminator or the machines from the Steven Spielberg movie “Artificial Intelligence” as two examples. As The Wall Street Journal reports, this is not going to stop Google and Amazon from trying to have smart assistants that can also be sources of jokes and funny conversations.

The reason for why companies creating AI products are seeking to make their offers more human is to make them more relatable. People have a natural tendency to feel more comfortable about interacting with things that seem more like them. This is the reason behind the popularity of emoji, robots that have the shape and even expressions of humans, and voiced smart assistants like Siri.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt to also have these products be part of the “Internet of Things” industry, where users can seemingly talk to virtual personalities to achieve certain objectives. “Jarvis” from the “Iron Man” movies is a striking example of what tech companies are trying to create, where a virtual butler is not only helping Tony start with everything but does so with a wry sense of humor.

As Engadget points out, however, current versions of smart assistants from Google, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft are not true AIs. Not only can they not understand conversation by internalizing and rationalizing them, they are also unable to form their own opinions or ask their own questions. Then again, by at least giving them some funny lines to say, users can have some fun having pretend conversations with them.