Humans use humour to ease communication problems in human-human interaction and \ud
in a similar way humour can be used to solve communication problems that arise\ud
with human-computer interaction. We discuss the role of embodied conversational\ud
agents in human-computer interaction and we have observations on the generation\ud
of humorous acts and on the appropriateness of displaying them by embodied\ud
conversational agents in order to smoothen, when necessary, their interactions\ud
with a human partner. The humorous acts we consider are generated spontaneously.\ud
They are the product of an appraisal of the conversational situation and the\ud
possibility to generate a humorous act from the elements that make up this\ud
conversational situation, in particular the interaction history of the\ud
conversational partners
