Bob Mankoff

Cartoonist, AI humor researcher
https://www.bobmankoff.com/ cartoonstock.com X: @bob_mankoff

Why you should listen

Where artificial intelligence meets human laughter is where you'll find Bob Mankoff these days. As a longtime cartoonist for The New Yorker and its cartoon editor for 20 years, he had a ringside seat to the evolution of the magazine's cartoon from pen and ink to pixels to algorithms. His groundbreaking partnerships with Microsoft and Google DeepMind to develop algorithms for the The New Yorker's caption contest demonstrated that even machines could learn to spot a good joke (even if they couldn't yet make one in 2016). But time and AI marched on, which led Mankoff in 2023 — with the help of The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence — on a journey from understanding what makes a good cartoon to creating one. Today, as president of cartoonstock.com, the world’s largest archive of single-panel cartoons, he continues pushing the boundaries of AI humor comprehension and creation while ensuring that humans remain in control and in the loop.

Bob Mankoff’s TED talks

More news and ideas from Bob Mankoff

In Brief

Kashmir Hill and Surya Mattu win Tech in Journalism Award and more TED news

November 20, 2018

It’s been a busy few weeks for the TED community. Below, our favorite highlights. Meet 2018’s Technology in Journalism Honorees. Journalists Kashmir Hill and Surya Mattu received this year’s Technology in Journalism Award from the National Press Foundation for their work on “The House That Spied On Me.” The article details how they transformed Hill’s […]

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Design

Bob Mankoff picks his 11 favorite New Yorker cartoons ever

June 26, 2013

Bob Mankoff lives and breathes cartoons. He’s drawn many himself — he’s had a contract with The New Yorker for more than 30 years and, in 1997, he became the magazine’s cartoon editor. It’s now his job to sift through the 1,000 or so “idea drawings” (as they’re called within The New Yorker‘s walls) that […]

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