The Laughing Room

Note: this article was originally published elsewhere in November of 2018.

I recently heard about a project put together by a student at MIT where an A.I. was built on the back of stand-up comedian transcripts in order to see if it could determine what was and wasn’t funny based on what it heard from the everyday public. Not too long after I heard about the project — dubbed The Laughing Room — I found and decided to visit the project in person hoping to get a sense of what it was like and to see what role I could play in getting the machine to laugh.

The Laughing Room was a project put together by Jonny Sun and Hannah Davis that was tucked into the corner of the Cambridge Public Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Minus the laptops, the camera, the audio output and the recording equipment, the room was set up to resemble a sitcom-like living room: there was a couch, two adjoining chairs, and books related to comedy left all over the table. The glass wall ensured that the room was well lit.

I came into the room late, and you can watch my brief appearance on the seven-hour live stream above. (I come…