Humor occurs when the brain recognizes a pattern that surprises it, suggests Alastair Clarke in the forthcoming book, Humour.

“Now that we understand the mechanism of humour, the possibility of creating an artificial intelligence being that could develop its own sense of humour becomes very real,” he says. “This would, for the first time, create an AI capable of exhibiting one of the defining characteristics that make us human, making it seem significantly less robotic as a result.”