Have you ever wondered if when a friend hits you with a “LOL” after you text them something that you felt was a real knee slapper if it was sincere? Were they really laughing out loud? Could they prove it? Now you can.
There is a new device called the LOL Verifier, and according to its creator Brian Moore, it has safeguards in place that will only allow you to type “LOL” if it can unequivocally confirm that you laughed out loud.
Moore is into tech, and he’s also an artist, and in an interview with Motherboard, he told them he had been about the genesis of “LOL.”
“The deflation of the LOL, as it were, was a realization when I started talking with friends. LOL does not say anything anymore. It might as well be punctuation.
“I wanted to figure out if there was a way to make something that would actually verify it. Finally, I figured out a way to make it into a physical piece of hardware that sits between your keyboard and your computer and sniffs for an LOL.”
Okay, let’s get down to the basics of how this works. The device is a small black box connected to a computer by a cable. There is a light in the center, and when a user types “LOL,” the device springs into action and listens for a laughing sound. If it can confirm at least a giggle, the light turns green, and a message will be attached to the text that says “LOL verified at (the time the text was sent).
However — if no laugh is detected, a red light gets lit up, and the “LOL” is replaced with a different message, such as “that’s funny.” Or “ha.”
Moore takes laughter very seriously. He uses an AI model that detects laughter. A chuckle will activate a green light.
If the device becomes available for the masses, there’s a bit of a time commitment for the user — who would have to provide about 20 minutes of different kinds of laughing sounds.
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