Computers are still too stupid!
I think it’s a problem that the computers are still so dumb that I have to communicate with them through complex programming languages in order to tell them what EXACTLY I want them to do. Don’t you think they should be able to understand plain English, and even know what I want before I say it out loud?(such as google knowing what I’m searching before I even finish typing)
Couple weeks ago I watched the speech by Astro Teller, Head of Google X, his Anti-Technology Mission Statement, I was shockingly enlightened. In short summary, Astro talked about that his mission at Google X is really to use technology to “get technology out of our way.”
Anti-Technology from Google X? Well, what he really meant is that he wants to make technology to blend in our life seemlessly, to solve our problems without us human having to compromise to the machines(such as google self-driving car). That really is the ultimate goal of technology. Tech is here to help human, to make our lives better, not torture the users. Programming languages have evolved over the past 60+ years, from something complex, difficult to understand, bloated into something as simple and English-like as Ruby. But even with Ruby, they still seems so stupid that I have to keep putting “end” on every statement, adding different libraries into my program. And Ruby doesn’t really solve that much probelm because majority of other applications still have to be made with Java or C based language, which are even less English like.
And the Bugs, OH GOD THE BUGS!! Programmers probablly spent more than half of their time debugging, figuring out syntax issues, studying different languages and deal with version control. This is gotta change someday. We human should not compromise to machines that we have to speak their language. They should compromise with us and SPEAK OUR LANGUAGE.
So what is the solution? I believe the current development in Artificial Intelligence and Natural Languages are in the right direction to resolve this. I imagine that one day all the lower-level commands would no longer need to be input by human; with computer algorithm smart enouph to understand natural languages, understand what we human want, and then implement the commands in the most efficient way possible. Things such as memory management, threading, resource management and data-type storage should all be automated at the bottom level so that human barely needs to touch it. Human would just need to give the most high-level commands, and computers should figure out the rest by themselves.
Call me crazy. But yes, I believe they will someday(or at least die trying).