I have been having this random thought regarding the future of programming languages for the past week or so. This article is just me rambling about my thoughts.
A long time ago, C was considered a high-level language. At the time it was being compared to Assembly and the like. Now we have JavaScript and Python etc... which are the high-level languages of our current time.
So, what will a future high-level language be? Here is my un-informed opinion.
I think a number of high-level languages will be born out of AI. There have been small hints at this future based on some of the early uses of chat-GPT.
If you ask chat-GPT to write a program 100 times, you will likely get many different responses. One option to negate this, is to set up your own template language specific to your chat instance. I saw this in a Fireship video a while back. Essentially, you can set up a syntax similar to yaml that helps chat-GPT generate code more specific to how you want it structured. In reality this is basically a markup language not really a programming language.
Could a full-blown programming language work like this? I don't see why not. Imagine you open your text editor and start typing some code, but when you compile it, an AI model interprets it to do what you want. In this case, the compiler is just the AI model. Or maybe the AI model could run the program as you type, possibly show a real time result of your code like how many markdown editor's work.
One prediction I have heard regarding the future of AI, is a single universal AI chat model that connects to many services. This allows you to control dozens or hundreds of programs from one chat box. For instance, all the services used inside a company, or all your social media accounts being controlled by a single text terminal. When you type out your instructions, the chat model does whatever it needs to do to make your request happen in the given service.
I can imagine the power of a programming language that can precisely control 100's of services at any point. Like one line of code could do something in Salesforce, and the next line could send emails throughout the company while another generates cost reports. The ease of automation would be extraordinary.
Who knows.
Maybe the next high level programming language is just the English language? (Thought provoking way to end the article)
Leave your thoughts in the comments. I am interested to hear them.
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