Anders Hejlsberg on the worst programming language for AI

By GitHub

Categories: Product, Tools

Summary

The worst programming language for AI to target is actually the best, because AI's abilities are directly proportional to the amount of code it has seen - and the most common languages like JavaScript, Python, and TypeScript dominate AI training data.

Key Takeaways

1. The 'perfect' programming language for AI would be the 'most horrible' because it wouldn't be in the training set.
2. AI's ability to write code in a language is directly proportional to how much of that code it has seen in training data.
3. AI is a 'big regurgitator' of code it has seen, with some extrapolation on top.
4. AI has seen a lot of JavaScript, Python, and TypeScript, making those the 'best' languages for AI to target.
5. New or novel programming languages are actually at a disadvantage for AI, as they won't be in the training data.
6. The optimal programming language for AI is the one that is most prevalent in the training data, not necessarily the 'best' language for human developers.

Topics

• AI Optimization
• Programming Language Adoption
• Machine Learning Bias
• Natural Language Generation
• Algorithmic Bias

Transcript Excerpt

I've had a lot of people ask me, "Oh, why don't you go design the perfect programming language for AI to target?" Do you know what I mean? And I go, "Well, the perfect programming language for AI to target would be the most horrible programming language for AI to target because there wouldn't be any of it in the training set that the AI is trained on. AI's abilities in a particular writing code in a particular language is directly proportional to how much of that code it has seen because it is a...