© 2026 Western New York Public Broadcasting Association

140 Lower Terrace St.
Buffalo, NY 14202

Toronto Address:
130 Queens Quay E.
Suite 903
Toronto, ON M5A 0P6


Mailing Address:
Horizons Plaza P.O. Box 1263
Buffalo, NY 14240-1263

Buffalo Toronto Public Media | Phone 716-845-7000
BTPM NPR Newsroom | Phone: 716-845-7040
Differing shades of blue wavering throughout the image
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

How can our relationships with computers be funnier and friendlier?

Part 2 of the TED Radio Hour episode Humor Us.

Artificial intelligence and people often struggle to seamlessly interact. Computer scientist Vinith Misra shares how computational humor could help bridge the gap between humans and their machines.

About Vinith Misra

Vinith Misra is a computer scientist and currently works as the technical director for content strategy data science at Roblox. Previously, he worked at Netflix and IBM Watson.

He's received the Stanford Graduate Fellowship, the National Science and Defense Graduate Fellowship and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's David Adler Memorial Thesis Prize. In 2015, he was a member of Forbes' "30 Under 30." He also consulted on the HBO television show "Silicon Valley."

Misra got his bachelor's and his master's in engineering from MIT. He earned his Ph.D. at Stanford University's Information Systems Lab.

This segment of the TED Radio Hour was produced by James Delahoussaye and edited by Katie Simon. You can follow us on Twitter @TEDRadioHour and email us at TEDRadioHour@npr.org.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

James Delahoussaye
[Copyright 2024 NPR]
Manoush Zomorodi
Manoush Zomorodi is the host of TED Radio Hour. She is a journalist, podcaster and media entrepreneur, and her work reflects her passion for investigating how technology and business are transforming humanity.
Katie Simon
Katie Simon is the Supervising Editor for Embedded, which showcases premier enterprise documentary storytelling for NPR and the NPR Network.