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In a time when technology evangelists and entrepreneurs can’t agree whether artificial intelligence is a blessing or a curse to society, one thing is certain; we have embarked on an journey of which the end is not yet in sight.
At DjangoCon Europe 2018, Emma Gordon kickstarted the event with an
about the state of artificial intelligence and where it seems to be heading. Specifically, she spoke about how AI will likely replace a lot of occupations in the next couple of decades.One common concern with the attendees of DjangoCon Europe might unsurprisingly be the role AI can play when it comes to developing new software. Luckily, Gordon was quick to point out that, when you fall in the correct category, you’ll still have a job for (at least a few) years to come.
According to the website https://willrobotstakemyjob.com/, it’s not necessarily software developers who should worry about their jobs. Being that this occupation requires some insight, creativity, and a ‘human touch’, it’s hard to replace with an algorithm. On the other hand, computer programmers have a drastically higher chance of being replaced by our robot overlords. A staggering 48% according to Will Robots Take My Job.
That being said, there are certainly theories being developed that give a glimpse at what AI software development could be like. One such theory comes from an interesting angle (and age).
Gordon presented us with an edgy named programming language called Brainfuck (or Brainf) developed in 1993 by Urban Müller. This “Turing complete” programming language only consists of the following few characters: <, >, +, -, ., ,, [ and ]. Even though this does not seem as much, it is theoretically capable of performing any calculation thinkable. Without getting into the nitty-gritty of the inner working, this is what our classic “Hello world” program would look like:
+++++ +++++ initialize counter (cell #0) to 10[ use loop to set 70/100/30/10 > +++++ ++ add 7 to cell #1 > +++++ +++++ add 10 to cell #2 > +++ add 3 to cell #3 > + add 1 to cell #4<<<< - decrement counter (cell #0)]> ++ . print 'H'> + . print 'e'+++++ ++ . print 'l'. print 'l'+++ . print 'o'> ++ . print ' '<< +++++ +++++ +++++ . print 'W'> . print 'o'+++ . print 'r'----- - . print 'l'----- --- . print 'd'> + . print '!'> . print '\n'
Source: https://fatiherikli.github.io/brainfuck-visualizer/
One might ask how this complex yet simple looking syntax might lead to artificial intelligence taking your job. The advantage of the code above is that it can be easily transformed into a different program without (too much of) a risk of syntax errors. Gordon demonstrated a genetic algorithm that was able to create a program using Brainfuck, that outputted the word “hi” without any human input or intervention.
Even though this proof-of-concept is a long way from writing useful programs, it offers an interesting view into the way by which artificial intelligence might one day create functional and useful programs for us. Luckily for us, even then there seems to be a place for us humans. At the very least to oversee the more creative aspects of software development, as that is not a machine’s forté.
The code used in Emma Gordon’s presentation can be found here: https://github.com/emmagordon/genetic-algorithms