Types of humor that robots can play

Although humor is a well-known social lubricant defusing a complicated conflict between two parties, the efficacy of humor in human–robot interaction has barely been tested yet. This study compared the characteristics of humor performed by a robot and human to identify the possible type of jokes that a robot may play. In the experiment, a human actor performed disparaging – racist and sexist jokes, and non-disparaging (human condition and sexual) jokes, and a robot counterpart mimicked the same performance. Fifty-eight university students, 30 male and 28 female with mean age 23.10 (SD = 2.00), watched the randomly assigned jokes performed either by the robot or the human actor. The participants rated perceived humorousness, offensiveness, and willingness to share the joke with others, the perceived social presence and social attractions of the actor. The result showed that participants perceived non-disparaging jokes to be more humorous when performed by the human actor. On the other hand, the participants exhibited less disgust toward disparaging jokes when they were performed by the robot actor. This shows that humor can be used as an effective way to enrich the interaction between human and robot; but the acceptable types of humor should be carefully selected. •We examined the efficacy of humor in human–robot interactions.•Non-disparaging jokes were more humorous when performed by human than robot.•Humorousness enhances social presence and hence social attraction of robots.