Just What We Needed, Scientists! A Sexist Computer

Scientists at the University of Edinburgh have developed a computer that specializes in sexist jokes. OK, it's actually a "comedy" computer but it just so happens that quite a few of the jokes this machine comes up with are pretty sexist. You know, stuff like “I like my women like I like my gas… natural.” Or, "I like my men like I like my court... superior."

Is anyone else as confused by this pointless invention as I am? I mean, first of all, where was the pressing need for a joke machine computer? Were the people of Scotland rallying for this highly-necessary invention? Did these computer scientists see a great void in the "automated machine that makes corny jokes" market? Did they think their career was going to be made on a contraption that has the comedic chops of your grandfather? I mean, come on. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks these Scottish science whizzes could have used their funding on something a lot more necessary and useful. You know, maybe something that has a purpose in terms of serving humanity, or actually enhances people's lives!

Dr. David Matthews, who helped develop the computer, says that people they tested the machine on did actually laugh at its jokes. OH OK THEN, ALL IS WELL. He said:

"Computers have an advantage over people in that they can process masses of information, so we fed computers a wealth of material from which they extracted creative and unusual word combinations to fit our joke template. The holy grail for machine-generated comedy would be to include cultural references, but these are very hard to capture."

Cultural references made by a computer are the holy grail, y'all. SCIENCE!