Research collaboration for "humorous interaction" 2-man stand-up comedy (manzai) with a robot

We are now in the process of developing PaPe-jiro as part of our research in human-robot communication. For a robot companion in the home, the mere ability to assist the family with various chores is not enough; it also needs to be able to converse with family members in a pleasant way, so that they develop a fondness for it. We feel that this is one of the most important aspects of our current robot research and development. In collaboration with well-known Japanese comedian Zenjiro, we tackled this challenge by focusing on developing the robot's sense of humor. In this experiment, PaPe-jiro joined Zenjiro onstage as the "straight man" to his comedy routine. This allowed us to explore the possibility of the robot's ability to laugh and joke, as well as search for an appropriate brand of robot-specific humor.