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Ask HN: Will AI be able to create a more perfect programming language?

• mimixco 7y ago
  IMO, no. ML is about improving the training and results from an existing dataset. No computer will ever be able to make the leap into creating a dataset that never existed; the best it can do is build something from pieces and parts that were already available. In other words, a computer that can play chess cannot teach itself to bake chocolate chip cookies (no ML; no training for that), but a human can. Language design, in fact the existence of language as we are discussing, is the exclusive domain of humans. It takes humans to invent a new language (See mine: [0]) because only humans can make the leap to something truly new. Computers won't invent programming languages any more than they can paint real paintings or make real music. Computer speech, writing, art, and music can only be made from parts which were curated or defined by people. [0]https://mimix.io/specs/ https://mimix.io/specs/
  • Foober223 7y ago
    > No computer will ever be able to make the leap into creating But aren't humans proof an inanimate set of atoms can be creative? Electric charge is pushing pressure through a psychical structure for both human brains and man-made computers. Unless there's something supernatural going on (ie having a soul), I'm convinced real creativity can come from a variety of physical structures, from carbon based human brains to silicon machines.
    • mimixco 7y ago
      That's an entirely different set of combinatorics. Life and ATP and energy transport within cells arose from inanimate molecules and DNA is just inanimate parts and that led to evolution and intelligence. A computer has far more limited resources to work with (processor, memory, storage. That's it.) and cannot "jump the box" in the way that is possible with chemistry and physics that gives rise to chemistry.
• AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  If it does, will it be a more perfect language for humans to use, or just more perfect for AIs?
• tlb 7y ago
  You have to define "better" better. Usually it's a measure of the productivity of human programmers using it. So languages that match human thought patterns are better. It's not clear that AIs would be good at optimizing for human comprehension. If AIs are writing code directly, they might work faster with a very different-looking language that would be hard for people to design. So they might evolve something for their own use.
• sharemywin 7y ago
  Siri or her cousins will get better and better until there really isn't need for "programming" You'll just have a conversation. Maybe if your trained in one of those "old programming languages" you might exchange pseudo code to get your point across. or draw out a truth table.
• kleer001 7y ago
  If they do it'll look a heck of a lot like lisp or one of its many flavours.
  • tcbasche 7y ago
    Surely that's purely subjective. I look at a lisp and gasp, but that's because I've never really used it and am not used to it.
    • kleer001 7y ago
      Well, whatever it is it'll likely look like gibberish to humans without some syntactic sugar. But my point is that it would likely share that data/code macros business.
• tcbasche 7y ago
  > a programming language better than any we have now This is so purely subjective it makes my head spin. What makes a programming language _better_ than any other? Surely the right tool for the job, and the tool that you have the most knowledge and experience in, is the 'best' programming language. It just strikes of that 'beginner-programmer' thinking where we latch onto language_x and then proselytise it for no other reason than we are proficient in it, without any self-awareness of our own opinions.
• croo 7y ago
  Brainfuck is better than any other programming language. It has only 8 different commands to use ( instead of the much more verbose GO programming language ) and those commands are simple, one character long terms. From now on every code will be simpler and shorter. The benefits are multiple fold - more speed, easier compile optimalizations and for humans this is definetly the easiest language to grasp.
  • kleer001 7y ago
    What about GolfScript?