Humor is one of the most interesting concepts of the human mind. It has been a field of research in many different sciences, ranging from philosophy, linguistics, psychology to biology and most social sciences. Since the comedies of the Greek theatre a sense of humor has been a vital contribution to the development of democratic and fair societies. On another level laughter has proven to be one of the healthiest ways to increase both the physical resilience and the mental health of individuals.

To exhibit humor in its many forms a lot of (practical) intelligence, logic and contextual knowledge is needed to be able to understand or produce a joke. While behavioral research suggests that intelligent and social animals such as monkeys, dolphins and rats possess a sense of humor, computer scientists have been looking into the logic behind jokes, caricatures and funny mishaps in the real world, aiming to make them computable.

Since the rise of ChatGPT many LLMs have mastered the mechanics of humor in language and image creating AIs are ready to create any kind of cartoons and caricatures.
Participants of the lecture are invited to not only discuss the impact of these new capacities on human society but in a collaborative formar also develop and juggle further ideas.

Lecturer: Thorsten Kreissig - TeeKay, Mensa Germany
TeeKay combines art, education, and science to inspire social change. With a background in performing arts, he has created and directed over 200 international projects in ballet, opera, and musical comedy. He develops participatory art projects, including flash mobs like “Dance the Cranko” and the robot-human “U&I-Robotic-Dance.” Since 2020, he collaborates with the University of Luxembourg on AI and robotics projects for ESCH22. Trained in psychology at the Technical University of Berlin, TeeKay is also a science communicator and member of Scientists4Future, promoting action on climate change.