Sarcasm "is one of the toughest problems in computing," says Shrikanth Narayanan, a professor of computer science, linguistics and psychology at the University of Southern California.
Computer programming follows strict rules, while natural language, particularly the inside-joke culture of the Web, doesn't.
That is the hurdle faced by USC's Annenberg Innovation Lab, an interdisciplinary center that brings together social and computer scientists. The lab's "Twitter Sentiment Analysis" project unites linguists, sociologists and computer scientists to try to build a modern-day lexicon for computers to read and interpret huge chunks of data provided by the millions of people who share their opinions online. The scientists at the lab have been using the political season to try to teach a computer to better understand the true sentiment behind tweets.
"If we can crack through political sarcasm, everything else will be easier," says Jonathan Taplin, a onetime film producer, Bob Dylan tour manager and investment banker who now runs the Annenberg lab, which is sponsored by IBM, IBM +1.17%DirecTV, DTV +0.15% Warner Bros. and other companies.
See the full story here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203335504578088763796519732.html