​The US Military has developed AI to create its own programs

May.07.2018

Author :Justin Brunnette

Category: IT News

The US Military has developed AI to create its own programs


The prospects of AI replacing white collar jobs has been on the public conscious as of recent. Though many may see computer programming as a sanctuary job, it may be one of the first to give way to AI (at least the low level programming). Bayou is an AI that can create entire programs with only a few key words and basic information from the user.
 
Developed by Scientist from Rice University receiving funding from DARPA and Google, the project was initiated by aim of gathering knowledge from massive repositories online such as GitHub. For the past 60 years, there has been an endeavor in the programming community to have an automative system that can write code but the wall has been that the methods so far has not been able to overcome ambiguity. Bayou co-creator and associate professor of computer science at Rice University states, “You usually need to give a lot of details about what the target program does, and writing down these details can be as much work as just writing the code.”
 
Bayou instead works similarly to a search engine in that it takes in small amount of information and gives a list of sets of code that fit the users need. Bayou takes advantage of a type of neural deep learning called Neural Sketch Learning. This system uses program sketches or models of program syntax, distributing them over a Posterior probability ( a probability distribution for unknown quantity that is treated as a random variable) to narrow down into target programs. This technique basically creates a “sketch” of each program it studies and makes associations with “intent” of the code.
 
Bayou essentially taught itself after analyzing the vast databases of Java code that humans have written to be able to write its own code. This technique allows it to analyze rich coding languages like Java and recognize high level patterns.
 
The current programing environment is that programmers would ask questions or search for answers on sites like Stack Overflow for help from their peers. Since Bayou has more access to a wealth of knowledge than even expert programmers, Bayou can provide not only immediate feedback but if in the case that it does not, can provide the human with much needed information about their question.
 
Bayou co-creator and Rice University professor, Chris Jermaine, states, “Programming today is very different that it was 30 or 40 years ago[;] The days when a programmer could write code from scratch are long gone.”
 
For those of us in the industry, this may sound be alarming, this may is actually be some welcoming news. The most mind numbing portion of our jobs is the trying to find the appropriate hints or examples of code for the problem we are trying to solve and a very de-stimulating part of our time. This should help accelerate the degree with which programmers can grow in their craft.
 
For now Bayou is analyzing code in Java and may have prospects for other languages in the future. A free version of the application is available in the following link.
http://www.askbayou.com/ 

Original Article: https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.05698