Your sense of humor is your cognitive signature
We don't measure if you're funny. We measure how you use humor — and that radically changes how AI should talk to you.
An AI that responds with irony to someone who doesn't tolerate it is actively worse than one that doesn't try to be funny. An AI that never uses humor with someone who values it sounds robotic and distant. Humor is the most personal and hardest-to-calibrate aspect of natural language — and probably the one that most separates "this is an AI" from "this gets me."
What do the 6 dimensions measure?
Humor isn't one thing — it's six. Two decades of humor psychology (Martin et al. 2003, Ruch et al. 2018, Ruch & Heintz 2016, Willinger et al. 2017) have shown that "having a sense of humor" hides quite distinct dimensions — from the joke that bonds a group to the dark quip about death, with political satire and the discomfort of being the butt of the joke in between. AHP integrates this state of the art into a single instrument.
Each dimension is relatively independent. You can score high on playful-affiliative (D1) and high on dark-transgressive (D5) simultaneously — and that tells the AI very different things than scoring high on only one. The Afini Humor Index (AHI) integrates the six into a single score.
D1 — Playful-Affiliative
Humor to build bonds. Funny anecdotes, witty observations, lightening the mood. The humor of a great host.
D2 — Reflective-Resilient
Humor as resilience. An ironic gaze on yourself when things go wrong. The humor of someone who finds something funny in the airport queue while missing their flight.
D3 — Witty-Creative
Verbal and associative humor. Wordplay, double meanings, unexpected connections, well-built absurdism. The humor of someone who thinks in metaphors.
D4 — Corrective-Satirical
Humor as moral instrument. Satire of institutions, irony about public figures, commentary on the unjust or ridiculous. The humor of the columnist and the activist.
D5 — Dark-Transgressive
Humor that crosses taboos. Death, illness, moral lines — when well done. Distinguishes between laughing at the topic and laughing at suffering people.
D6 — Ridicule-Vulnerability
How you fit in when others laugh. High D6: others' laughter feels like a potential threat. Low D6: teasing rolls off you. This radically modulates what humor an AI can use with you.
Scientific foundation
The AHP (Afini Humor Profile) is a proprietary instrument by Bilbao AI S.L. developed in 2026 for Afini.ai. Its 32 items have been redacted ex novo and do not constitute derivative work from any prior instrument. Its design is conceptually inspired by the theoretical body of humor psychology of the last two decades — Martin et al. (2003) on humor styles, Ruch et al. (2018) on comic styles, Ruch & Heintz (2016) on benevolent and corrective humor, Ruch & Proyer (2009) on dispositions toward ridicule, Willinger et al. (2017) on dark humor.
In its current release (v1.2.0), AHP is linguistically closed across all six platform languages — Spanish, English, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese — with independent professional review. What remains open is Phase B: per-language cognitive piloting and the construction of empirical, language-stratified Afini norms (estimate: M+18), which will lift the provisional flag on fine interpersonal comparisons. Individual scores are interpretable from day one; the instrument is eligible for registration with the General Intellectual Property Registry as of the v1.2.0 already in production.
Theoretical references
Bilbao AI S.L. (2026). Afini Humor Profile (AHP), v1.2.0. Conceptually inspired by: Martin, R. A., Puhlik-Doris, P., Larsen, G., Gray, J., & Weir, K. (2003); Ruch, W., Heintz, S., Platt, T., Wagner, L. & Proyer, R. T. (2018); Ruch, W. & Heintz, S. (2016); Ruch, W. & Proyer, R. T. (2009); Willinger, U. et al. (2017).
How does AI use it?
The humor profile calibrates three dials: permitted irony level, playful vs. serious tone, and use of humorous self-criticism. The result: an AI that knows when an ironic comment will land well and when it'll sound like an insult.
"To improve your productivity, I recommend establishing dedicated time blocks, eliminating distractions, and prioritizing your tasks with an Eisenhower matrix."
"Look, the truth is half of productivity advice is recycled nonsense from 90s books. But there are three things that actually work (and no, none of them involve waking up at 5 AM): 90-minute blocks, a NOT-to-do list, and accepting that Monday isn't your day."
For someone high on corrective-satirical (D4) and reflective-resilient (D2) humor, the first response sounds like a LinkedIn coach. The second sounds like a real person.
Teach AI your sense of humor
32 questions. 5 minutes. And the AI will know whether it can drop an ironic comment or should keep the tone professional.