A sarcasm detector, that's a real useful invention.

[Cognitive Gear]

Link to full article

Devised by computer scientists at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the algorithm has been programmed to recognise sarcasm in lengthy texts by analysing patterns of phrases and punctuation often used to indicate irony.

In tests on 66,000 product reviews posted on the Amazon shopping website, the algorithm had an impressive 77 per cent success rate in picking out sarcastic comments – arguably higher than some humans.

The researchers "trained" the algorithm to recognise sarcasm by teaching it nearly 5,500 sentences from Amazon reviews that human volunteers had marked as either sarcastic or non-sarcastic.

The sarcastic phrases from the pool of Amazon reviews used for the research included "Great for insomniacs", "Are these iPods designed to die after two years?" and "Defective by design".

From its learned list of sarcastic phrases, the algorithm was taught to recognise patterns of words commonly used by writers to show that they do not mean to be taken literally.

[steenajack]

Okay, this is awesome! This really could come in handy.

[Midknight74012]

People like me and many others I can name don't need this.

[Davidizer13]

Oh, sure, like that'll ever work.

[Alcuinus]

HOLD IT! I think I detect sarcasm in the responses thread!

[MightiMidget]

Uh. Huh. Sure. Okay. That wouldn't be embarrassing to carry around or anything.

[Tsukuyomi]

Haha!

That's pretty creative XD?

[Lynna]

Well....shouldn't people be relying on thier own instincts to figure these things out rather than relying on computers? I mean, if all we ever do is go crying to technology to save us, how will we ever learn? I think new technology is great, and this probably WILL come in handy in some way or form, but for an ordinairy person in everyday life?

[TGJesusfreak]

I agree Lynna. I don't see the use of a sarcasm detector XD It's like " *gasp* I think he's being sarcastic. Let me go get my sarcasm detector!" XD

[steenajack]

I'm sorry, but all the sarcasim in the thread made me think of this clip for some reason. (at about 1:17 and on, but the whole thing is funny)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBJQIaWk8uk

[Warrior4Christ]

I'm being REALLY SARCASTIC.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJkxl5cjVs8

[Mr. Rogers]

Is this an invention for people who were born without wit?

[Rusty Claymore]

No, it will be released in the form of a sonic screwdriver, so when you feel someone is being sarcastic you can point it at them and go, "AHA! You thought you could get that by me?!? OBJECTION!! The screwdriver NEVER LIES!! Unlike you, it seems. Pitiful fool, you're no match for my tool! Bua-hahahahaaha!" ...or something like that.

Sarcasm- n. The gap between what is said, and what is meant.

[blkmage]

Serious business time.

Stuff like this is never intended for end-users to use. This is AI research; it's natural language processing in particular. Sarcasm was probably chosen for this paper because it's a tricky and interesting problem from a computational standpoint. I mean, some people have a hard enough time recognizing.

Rather, these algorithms are likely to be used for stuff like data mining. Even if the sarcasm recognition is proven to have no usefulness at all, the techniques described in the paper can be extended to some other application of natural language processing. The ultimate goal of natural language processing is for a computer to be able to understand human language without us having to bend over backwards to phrase it in a way that the computer can understand.

Anyhow, if you're interested in current AI research, you can have fun and read the paper: "A Great Catchy Name: Semi-Supervised Recognition of Sarcastic Sentences in Online Product Reviews".

[Nate]

Awesome, I'll just drop everything I'm doing to read that article because it interests me so much.

[uc pseudonym]

In tests on 66,000 product reviews posted on the Amazon shopping website, the algorithm had an impressive 77 per cent success rate in picking out sarcastic comments – arguably higher than some humans.

Forget "arguably." I want someone to do an actual test to verify this statement.

[Lynna]

I'm being REALLY SARCASTIC.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJkxl5cjVs8

This.Is.Win

[Warrior4Christ]

No, it will be released in the form of a sonic screwdriver, so when you feel someone is being sarcastic you can point it at them and go, "AHA! You thought you could get that by me?!? OBJECTION!! The screwdriver NEVER LIES!! Unlike you, it seems. Pitiful fool, you're no match for my tool! Bua-hahahahaaha!" ...or something like that.

Sarcasm- n. The gap between what is said, and what is meant.

No, that's sarchasm.

AI strategies sound so general when the mechanism is explained.. so it's probably not too much more difficult to find different applications for it with little modification.

[Nikolai Melodie]

...I wish we had one of those, but, for the internet. For text. 'Cause, really, I can think of at least five people in my immediate life (not here on CAA) who could reallllly use a blinking pop up window to tell them, 'CALM DOWN FOOL; I WAS BEING SARCASTIC!' every once in awhile.