Finally, a practical use for AI ;)

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Angie Chappell

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May 4, 2011, 3:44:13 PM5/4/11
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A double entendre is really a type of metaphor that brings together
two conceptual realms: one straight-laced and one raunchy. So "that's
what she said" (TWSS) jokes aren't just crude, cheap ways to get a
laugh-they're also fertile testing ground for whether computers can be
trained to "think" metaphorically about language, the way humans
do.

To train their computer program, which assesses the TWSS potential of
individual statements, Kiddon and Brun gathered 1.5 million sentences
from erotic literature and 57,000 from more mainstream texts. By
analyzing big swathes of lexical content, DEviaNT began to learn which
terms frequently appear together in risqué contexts—thus indicating a
potential TWSS. The program then honed its skills on 2,000 sentences
from twssstories.com, an online forum for "That's what she said"
jokes.

Now that it's been properly trained, you can feed DEviaNT a string of
text, and it can tell you whether tacking on the four magic words will
result in hilarity. At the moment, the program has about the same
dirty-joke-telling ability as a 12-year-old boy: The researchers write
that it can pick out TWSS set-ups with around 70 percent accuracy.

Full story:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/browbeat/archive/2011/05/03/subject-could-eat-object-all-day-that-s-what-she-said.aspx
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