A small Swiss company will have a special device in the office for the next four weeks: It looks like a Bluetooth box, but is a laughter detector. Alexandra Toscanelli from the Basel insurance company Baloise helped develop the so-called Chief LOL Officer.
SZ: Ms. Toscanelli, you invented the Chief LOL Officer so that people in the office would have more to laugh about. This is a joke, right?
Alexandra Toscanelli: Luckily not, but I’m happy if it makes you smile. The device is also intended to encourage laughter, but above all we look at how much laughter actually occurs. And if that’s not enough, then we’ll motivate employees to laugh a little more, hopefully.
How does the laughter detector work?
This is a small device with a microphone inside that uses AI to measure the sounds that can be heard. If someone laughs, the AI recognizes: true. If there are other noises or conversations, then she notices: false. The number of laughs is recorded and analyzed. On average, an adult laughs about 15 times a day, which is why we said four laughs in two hours should be possible, anything less than that is not enough.
With such a compulsion to laugh, some grumpy people might lose their ability to laugh.
If you laugh less often, perhaps because you are stressed, you will receive an email encouraging you so that you can catch up on the laughter.
What does an email like this say?
A meme, a video of a little cat falling off the table and somersaulting, or someone accidentally hitting the scooter (a kick scooter, Note d. Editorial team) does a funny stunt.
Funny.
Of course, cat videos aren’t suitable for everyone, but there are all sorts of things to choose from. A social media agency has collected the best from the internet for us.
Does the device detect whether a laugh is real?
Yes, we trained the AI with real laughs together with spatial interaction designers. Yesterday we set up the device in the test company, we coughed and laughed artificially to trick the AI, but it worked.
There were grown people sitting around a table and laughing at a device?
Yes, and various real laughs were played beforehand. But even if someone were to fake a laugh, the good news is that even fake laughter helps your mental health. The serotonin is still released as soon as the laughing muscles are activated.
Can the detector also detect when someone is being laughed at?
Not yet, but we are confident that the owners of the companies would notice something like this even without a detector.
The device is being tested in a company with ten employees. What if they end up just laughing instead of working?
I think the owner would think that would be great, because you can’t concentrate for eight and a half hours anyway. The more natural the work environment, the more efficient you are. Laughter increases creativity, strengthens a sense of community, and serotonin is released.
You work for an insurance provider. Sounds a bit like there isn’t that much to laugh about there. Is that why you came up with the idea of the laughing machine?
One of our target groups are small and medium-sized companies, where absenteeism and mental health are an important issue, also because they cost companies a lot of money. Mental health problems are still talked about much less than a broken leg. We want to draw attention to this, but not in a dry, boring way of insurance. Laughter is also used in therapy. But the important thing is: laughter is not the solution to everything. You also have to name contact persons, hotlines and help points.
You can find further episodes of the series “A call to…” here.