{"links":{"self":"http://dataportal.arc.gov.au/NCGP/API/grants/DE260101573"},"data":{"type":"grant-details","id":"DE260101573","attributes":{"code":"DE260101573","administering-organisation":"The University of Melbourne","announcement-administering-organisation":"The University of Melbourne","scheme-name":"Discovery Early Career Researcher Award","grant-status":"Active","funding-commencement-year":2026,"years-funded":3,"project-start-date":"2026-01-01","anticipated-end-date":"2028-12-31","grant-summary":"Why the robot crossed the road: can AI perform believable comedy? This project investigates whether AI and robots can perform believable comedy, addressing a significant gap in our understanding of machine capabilities and human-robot interaction. Using innovative theatre-based methods, it aims to develop and evaluate performance techniques that allow machines to create authentic comedy. The research will produce the first major study on robot comedy performance, a theoretical framework for more-than-human comedy, and new interdisciplinary methods for collaborating with AI. Outcomes will enhance Australia's research capacity in creative technology, improve understanding of how machines use humour and manipulation in everyday life, and contribute to fields ranging from entertainment to social robotics.","funding-current":534320.00,"funding-at-announcement":530079,"investigators-current":[{"title":"Dr","firstName":"Robert","familyName":"Walton","roleName":"Discovery Early Career Researcher Award","roleCode":"DECRA","isFellowship":true,"orcidIdentifier":"0000-0003-2857-3372 "}],"investigators-at-announcement":[{"title":"Dr","firstName":"Robert","familyName":"Walton","roleName":"Discovery Early Career Researcher Award","roleCode":"DECRA","isFellowship":true,"orcidIdentifier":"0000-0003-2857-3372 "}],"organisations-current":[{"organisationName":"The University of Melbourne","roleName":"Administering Organisation","state":"VIC"}],"organisations-at-announcement":[{"organisationName":"The University of Melbourne","roleName":"Administering Organisation","state":"VIC"}],"field-of-research":[{"isPrimary":true,"code":"3604","name":"Performing Arts","type":"FOR20"},{"isPrimary":false,"code":"360403","name":"Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies","type":"FOR20"},{"isPrimary":false,"code":"360503","name":"Digital and Electronic Media Art","type":"FOR20"}],"socio-economic-objective":[{"code":"130103","name":"The Creative Arts","type":"SEO20"}],"international-collaboration":["Germany","Netherlands"],"lief-register":[],"achievement-summary":null,"national-interest-test-statement":"Machine-made humour is often laughably unsuccessful, and audiences, actors, and reviewers remain sceptical that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will ever be capable of creating and performing live comedy. If it were able to be humorous and learn this distinctly human trait, then machine-made comedy might alter our sense of humanity and increase acceptance of AI. This interdisciplinary project creates a series of prototypes that stage machine-made humour for live audiences, the ultimate test of their success. The prototypes focus on nonverbal humour, the foundation of comedy, related to staging, timing, tone, and surprise. This foundational approach to machine performance makes the research widely applicable to everyday interactions with computers and robots, maximising its impact. The project will create new methods and techniques in arts, entertainment, and interaction design through traditional academic outputs, and more broadly, through public presentations, and workshops. Humour is a challenging frontier in AI, and studying it as a performance offers potential new insights into initiating play, joy, mystery, and satisfaction in interaction, as well as an appreciation of deception, withholding, partiality, and coercion. Understanding these pleasures and perils of machine-made humour is critically important in the ‘post-truth’ era. This project offers urgent strategies for the public to practice sceptical viewing of machine-generated content."}}}