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> Most people simply are not in the habit of expressing themselves with enough precision, and might even be missing some essential training. I agree with this,

> Most people simply are not in the habit of expressing themselves with enough precision, and might even be missing some essential training. I agree with this, I don't think we'll be programming in natural languages until the computer is intelligent enough to pick out unintended ambiguity and ask clarifying questions. What I'm unsure about is whether or not the computer will be that intelligent in 50 years. Whenever it is that intelligent, I expect us to transition quickly.

afarrell 7y ago
A problem is: How many clarifying questions do we want the computer to ask? How many much judgement do we want the computer to exercise? There are going to be many tasks for which we don't want any independent judgement to be exercised by the machine. And for those tasks, we're going to still want a highly structured language.
- epicureanideal 7y ago
  And if the computer needs to ask the person a bunch of clarifying questions because they're providing ambiguous instructions, do we really trust that person's judgement about handling the unanticipated edge cases?
  - majormajor 7y ago
    That's been a large part of my job at times - working with product stakeholders who give a high level requirements overview and then trying to figure out all the edge cases they didn't specify up front, so that my team could properly design and estimate the work to build the features. So: yes, most companies already don't require people designing things to be able to fully spec every edge case in advance, without any dialogue.
    - afarrell 7y ago
      Thats different. You're the one designing the system -- Exercising judgement about which mechanical rules to implement.
    - aflag 7y ago
      The question is: can your job be automated in 50 years? Maybe it can. But the computer has a long way to go. I don't think we have enough evidence to give any estimate of when (if) that will happen.
m_fayer 7y ago
Ah, the good ol' Star Trek TNG computer. Even in the show people were constantly annoyed with it.

afarrell 7y ago

A problem is: How many clarifying questions do we want the computer to ask? How many much judgement do we want the computer to exercise? There are going to be many tasks for which we don't want any independent judgement to be exercised by the machine. And for those tasks, we're going to still want a highly structured language.

epicureanideal 7y ago
And if the computer needs to ask the person a bunch of clarifying questions because they're providing ambiguous instructions, do we really trust that person's judgement about handling the unanticipated edge cases?
- majormajor 7y ago
  That's been a large part of my job at times - working with product stakeholders who give a high level requirements overview and then trying to figure out all the edge cases they didn't specify up front, so that my team could properly design and estimate the work to build the features. So: yes, most companies already don't require people designing things to be able to fully spec every edge case in advance, without any dialogue.
  - afarrell 7y ago
    Thats different. You're the one designing the system -- Exercising judgement about which mechanical rules to implement.
  - aflag 7y ago
    The question is: can your job be automated in 50 years? Maybe it can. But the computer has a long way to go. I don't think we have enough evidence to give any estimate of when (if) that will happen.

m_fayer 7y ago

Ah, the good ol' Star Trek TNG computer. Even in the show people were constantly annoyed with it.