Now Computers Are Writing Lousy Jokes Like They Work For Jay Leno Or Something

Christmas crackers — traditional British holiday mini-pinatas that, when pulled apart, frequently contain tiny, crappy toys and a terrible joke (older American readers might recall the Dixie cups of their youth for comparative purposes) — just got a little easier to make… THANKS TO THE MACHINES.

Debenhams, the department store, has commissioned the computer science department at the University of Aberdeen to come up with jokes for next year’s crackers using a computer program that creates pun-based gags such as: What kind of tree is nauseated? A sick-amore.

The software, known as The Joking Computer, has the capacity to build millions of jokes using a large dictionary of words and simple language rules.

I would make a joke here, but why bother? I am just going to be replaced by an algorithm soon enough.