Learn about a research-backed way to make dad jokes funnier with canned laughter; how animals use principles of economics in the wild; and how quickly an AI taught itself to solve a Rubik’s cube. Please support our sponsors! Visit capterra.com/curiosity to find the best software solution for your business — for free! In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: Canned Laughter Makes Dad Jokes Funnier — https://curiosity.im/31Gp6s3 Animals Use Principles of Economics in the Wild — https://curiosity.im/31riihE An AI Taught Itself to Solve a Rubik's Cube in 20 Moves — https://curiosity.im/31ri2PI Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Learn about a research-backed way to make dad jokes funnier with canned laughter; how animals use principles of economics in the wild; and how quickly an AI taught itself to solve a Rubik’s cube.
Please support our sponsors! Visit capterra.com/curiosity to find the best software solution for your business — for free!
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/canned-laughter-makes-dad-jokes-funnier-animals-use-economics-and-ai-on-rubiks-cubes
CODY: Hi! We’re here from curiosity-dot-com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about a research-backed way to make dad jokes funnier; how animals use principles of economics in the wild; and how quickly an AI taught itself to solve a Rubik’s cube.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Canned Laughter Makes Dad Jokes Funnier — https://curiosity.im/31Gp6s3 (Cody)
CODY: New research suggests that when you hear a “dad joke,” you might find it funner if it comes along with a laugh track. Which is why we have a new podcast theme song: Baby Got Track! [ad lib]
CODY: Researchers from University College London published a paper in the July 2019 issue of Current Biology. And in it, they showed that added laughter actually enhances the humor of even the worst jokes. Laugh tracks were first used in radio to illustrate that a show was recorded in front of a live studio audience, and to make the person listening or watching at home feel like part of that audience. TV show producers started using them in 1950 and they became wildly popular, since they could shoot their shows in places where it would be impossible to have a live studio audience. These radio and television producers also knew that laughter is contagious, which was scientifically backed up by a 1992 study. But for this study, scientists wanted to take things a step further and see whether canned laughter affected the funniness of the joke itself. So the team assembled a list of 40 so-called "dad jokes" — the kind of humor you'd expect to find on a popsicle stick or to tickle a 6-year-old. Here's a sampling of some jokes from the study:
Why couldn't the toilet paper cross the road? Because it got stuck in a crack.
Why can't you give Elsa a balloon? Because she’ll "Let it Go."
Why was the tomato all red? Because it saw the salad dressing.
The team established a baseline ranking of how funny each joke was on a scale of one to seven, with the highest baseline ranking being somewhere between three and four. The researchers chose bad jokes on purpose because if a joke was fantastic, there’d be a chance that you couldn’t make it funner with a laugh track. A professional comedian delivered the jokes to a group of volunteers; all the jokes were paired with laughter, though half was clearly forced laughter, and half was more spontaneous and genuine laughter. Regardless of the type of laughter, adding jokes significantly enhanced how funny participants rated the jokes. Though the jokes with the highest ratings were the ones paired with the laughter that seemed the most authentic. So even though it might feel corny, the laugh track probably won't be going anywhere. Although now that they’ve researched the laugh track, I’m looking forward to research into the laugh field.
Animals Use Principles of Economics in the Wild — https://curiosity.im/31riihE (Ashley)
If you thought economics was a human invention, then think again. Research confirms that economics not only shows up in the animal kingdom, but is also more the rule than the exception.
The theory of a biological market was first posed in 1994 by Ronald Noë and Peter Hammerstein in the journal, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. It answered a question that had plagued behavioral biologists for decades: If Darwinism is all about survival of the fittest, why would animals cooperate in the wild?
Previous research had focused on the idea of game theory, or the way that individuals try to get the most benefit for themselves in a given situation. But Noë realized that game theory might suggest animals were stuck dealing with a single "partner." In reality, they could shop around. It turns out that just like in the human world, the animal kingdom is a marketplace where the laws of supply and demand are obeyed.
Here’s one example of how this plays out. In 2017, a paper published in the journal Nature Communications showed a female paper wasp acting like a shrewd landlord. She gave helper wasps shelter and in return, they cared for her offspring. But helpers have a choice, and they’d rather go to nests that requires less work. When researchers added more nests to the field, sure enough, the female wasps accepted smaller contributions from the helpers. Flood the market, and the price goes down.
Similar research came from a student of Noë named Redouan Bshary [RED-wahn bsh-ARR-y]. He studied the wrasse [RASS], which is a fish that eats dead skin and parasites off other fish. The wrasse hangs out at what’s basically a “cleaning station” on a piece of coral, and other fish visit the station for some polishing. Bshary realized there were two type of fish who made these grooming visits: some who lived near the station and couldn’t travel far beyond it, and others who explored wider ranges with more choices of stations. Just as market theory predicted, the fish who could go elsewhere got prompter service and a gentler cleaning, while the locals waited longer for rougher treatment.
All this goes to show market forces are everywhere, even deep in the ocean. And the takeaway is a good reminder: that acting in your own self-interest doesn't always turn out to benefit you the most — sometimes, you have to strategize and cooperate to get the best result.
CODY: That’s why I practice economics at eny cost.
[CAPTERRA]
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An AI Taught Itself to Solve a Rubik's Cube in 20 Moves — https://curiosity.im/31ri2PI (Republish) (Cody)
An AI taught itself to solve a Rubik’s Cube in under 20 moves. And this could be a big step towards creating advanced AI that can think, reason, plan, and make decisions. As reported by Futurity, researchers have developed an AI known as DeepCubeA, and it taught itself to solve the Rubik’s Cube in a fraction of a second.
The Rubik’s Cube was invented by a Hungarian architect in 1974. And researchers used it for this next-gen AI study because of its difficulty, according to Pierre Baldi, professor of computer science at UC Irvine. The Rubik’s cube has completion paths numbering in the billions, but only one goal state — each of six sides displaying a solid color, which apparently can't be found through random moves. Artificial intelligence can defeat the world’s best human chess and Go players, but the solution to the Rubik’s cube involves thinking that’s more symbolic, mathematical and abstract.
In the study, researchers were interested in understanding how and why the AI made its moves and how long it took to perfect its method. DeepCubeA trained in isolation for two days and, according to Baldi, is probably using a completely different form of reasoning from what humans use.
Baldi notes that these systems are not really “intelligent,” since they can be easily broken or fooled.
But the ultimate goal of projects like this one is to build the next generation of AI.
One can’t help but wonder: if an unintelligent system is capable of solving the Rubik’s cube in under 20 moves, what will a future intelligent system be capable of? Maybe we’ll answer that question in a future Cube & A session
ASHLEY: And now, let’s recap what we learned today.
CODY: Today we learned that canned laughter can make bad jokes funnier. No word on whether you can get the same effect from bottled laughter
ASHLEY: And that the principles of economics apply in the animal kingdom!
CODY: And that an AI taught itself how to solve a Rubik’s cube in a fraction of a second, in less than 20 moves. Maybe now they can figure out why the pirate couldn’t play cards oh wait - it’s because he was sitting on the deck!
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Stay curious!