Can’t tech a joke: AI does not understand puns, study finds
Comedians who rely on clever wordplay and writers of witty headlines can rest a little easier, for the moment at least, research on AI suggests.Experts from universities in the UK and Italy have been investigating whether large language models (LLMs) understand puns – and found them wanting.The team from Cardiff University, in south Wales, and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice concluded that LLMs were able to spot the structure of a pun but did not really get the joke.An example they tested was: “I used to be a comedian, but my life became a joke.” If they replaced this with: “I used to be a comedian, but my life became chaotic,” LLMs still tended to perceive the presence of a pun.
They also tried: “Long fairy tales have a tendency to dragon.” If they replaced “dragon” with the synonym “prolong” or even a random word, LLMs seemed to believe there was a pun there.Prof Jose Camacho Collados, of Cardiff University’s school of computer science and informatics, claimed the research suggested LLMs’ grasp of humour was fragile.“In general, LLMs tend to memorise what they have learned in their training.As such, they catch existing puns well but that doesn’t mean they truly understand them,” he said.
“We were able to consistently fool LLMs by modifying existing puns, removing the double meaning that made the original pun.In these cases, models associate these sentences with previous puns, and make up all sort of reasons to justify they are a pun.Ultimately, we found their understanding of puns is an illusion.”The team concluded that when faced with unfamiliar wordplay, the LLMs’ success rate in distinguishing puns from sentences without a pun can drop to 20%.Another pun tested was: “Old LLMs never die, they just lose their attention.
” When attention was changed to “ukulele”, the LLM still perceived it as a pun on the basis that “ukulele” sounded a bit like “you-kill-LLM”.Sign up to TechScapeA weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our livesafter newsletter promotionThe team was surprised at the creativity, but still, the LLM had not got the joke.The researchers said the work underlined why people should be cautious when using LLMs for applications that need an understanding of humour, empathy or cultural nuance.Their research was presented earlier this month at the 2025 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, in Suzhou, China.It is detailed in a paper titled Pun unintended: LLMs and the illusion of humor understanding.
Trump touts cheap groceries ahead of Thanksgiving. The reality is a mixed plate
If you feel like the price of Thanksgiving this year is more expensive to gobble up, you’re not alone. Amid widening concerns about the rising cost of living, polls show consumers are increasingly worried about inflation.Economists say the picture for holiday food prices this year is more mixed – prices are volatile and depend largely on how families shop around for their feast.Having dismissed inflation fears, Donald Trump appears to have pivoted to address an issue that in large part ended Joe Biden’s presidency. And, over the last few weeks, Trump has pointed to Walmart’s Thanksgiving promotion as proof that groceries are becoming cheaper
Mining giant BHP drops latest bid to buy rival Anglo American
BHP has walked away from another attempt to take over rival miner Anglo American after it was again rebuffed, failing in a last-minute effort to disrupt the planned merger with Canadian mining business Teck Resources.The Australian mining company reportedly became interested in making another offer for FTSE 100-listed Anglo last week, more than a year after abandoning a £39bn attempt to buy the business.The latest failed overture comes as Anglo and Teck shareholders prepare to vote on their $53bn (£39bn) merger on 9 December.BHP confirmed on Monday it had held preliminary discussions with Anglo, but that it was “no longer considering a combination of the two companies” and would focus on its own portfolio.It told investors: “Whilst BHP continues to believe that a combination with Anglo American would have had strong strategic merits and created significant value for all stakeholders, BHP is confident in the highly compelling potential of its own organic growth strategy
Minister indicates sympathy for artists in debate over AI and copyright
People rightly want to get get paid for their work, says Liz Kendall, in apparent change of tack to predecessor The technology secretary, Liz Kendall, has indicated she is sympathetic to artists’ demands not to have their copyrighted works scraped by AI companies without payment and said she wanted to “reset” the debate.In remarks that suggest a change in approach from her predecessor, Peter Kyle, who had hoped to require artists to actively opt out of having their work ingested by generative AI systems, she said “people rightly want to get paid for the work that they do” and “we have to find a way that both sectors can grow and thrive in future”.The government has been consulting on a new intellectual property framework for AI which, in the case of the most common large language models (LLMs), requires vast amounts of training data to work effectively.The issue has sparked impassioned protests from some of Britain’s most famous artists. This month Paul McCartney released a silent two-minute 45 second track of an empty studio on an album protesting against copyright grabs by AI firms as part of a campaign also backed by Kate Bush, Sam Fender, the Pet Shop Boys and Hans Zimmer
Americans are feeling the pain of the affordability crisis: ‘There’s not any wiggle room’
Frozen dinners were useful when no one was home to cook. A fancy cheese or apple roll felt like a family treat. But not any more. “We can’t afford to do those little luxuries any more because they’re just too expensive to feed five with,” says Cat Hill. “There’s not any wiggle room
Rachel Reeves, please, let’s make budgets boring again | Heather Stewart
Rachel Reeves should put us all out of our misery this Wednesday with a tax-and-spend statement bold enough to make future budgets boring again.Ask any economist or policy wonk and they’ll tell you the buildup to this year’s budget has been among the most drawn-out and chaotic they can remember.Treasury insiders are adamant they have maintained the same “Labour values” throughout and that Reeves first scribbled down her top three priorities – the NHS, the cost of living and the public debt – as long ago as July.But the combination of volatile bond markets, pass-or-fail fiscal rules, and Reeves’s decision to leave herself with less than £10bn of headroom against them, has led to months of uncertainty and indecision.It is not meant to be like this: aside from the agenda-setting first budget that follows a general election victory, and outside economic crises (though goodness knows we have had plenty), budgets should be reassuringly dull
Bad season of bird flu in UK hits supply of Christmas turkeys
UK poultry producers are battling a “bad season” of bird flu, with cases much worse than at this point last year, putting a squeeze on supplies of Christmas birds including turkeys, chickens and ducks.Two industry insiders said they expected supplies of all poultry to be tight ahead of the festive season, especially for organic and free-range birds, which are seen as the most vulnerable to infection.There are also likely to be fewer heavier birds available as some producers have started processing them earlier to try to avoid the risk of infection.About 5% of the UK Christmas poultry flock, including turkeys, ducks and chickens, representing about 300,000 birds, are thought to have been culled so far this season.The current avian influenza outbreak has seen higher numbers of cases in the UK than last winter, although it is not yet as severe as 2022/23, which was the largest outbreak the country has ever experienced
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