But the jokes it cracks need work...

Scientists have unveiled another robot capable of cracking jokes – although the quality of its surreal gags shouldn't yet worry comedians.

The main technological breakthrough of Emiew2 robot is that it is capable of reading a human's response to know whether its gags have bombed or not. That includes non-verbal signals such as nods, and not just the language used.

At a demonstration in Tokyo last week, the 80cm-tall robot was asked how many people worked at the Hitachi facility where it was developed.

Its surreal reply was: 'We have two swans.'

When its questioner appeared puzzled, Emiew2 said it had been joking. 'You got it? I’m kidding. We have about 800 people working here.'

Hitachi’s Hisashi Ikeda admitted that the robot’s sense of humour was hardly refined but said its comprehension was the prime advance.

It is the latest in a line of robots being developed to tell jokes and understand how they are received,

Last November, a robot based on Gadget Show presenter Jason Bradbury delivered a five-minute routine of gags, written by human comics, at the Glee club in Birmingham, with the aim of understanding the audience reaction.

Comedian and computer programmer Owen Niblock is working on a Gig-A-Tron 5000, which responds to heckles from a series of pre-prepared rejoinders. Niblock hopes to have her competing successfully against a human comedian by 2020.

And researchers in the Edinburgh are working on joke-generating software based on Twitter one-liners. Gags published last summer all followed the formula of: 'I like my men like I like my tea – hot and British' and came up with the variations: ‘I like my women like I like my computers – exported from a sweatshop in China’; ‘I like my women like I like my computers - free of viruses’ and ‘I like my men like I like my acorns – buried.’

Published: 28 May 2014