by Fernando Caracena ©Fernando Caracena, February 2023
I so envied the ease with which the crew of the Enterprise got the attention of the ship’s computer and told it what to do through a series of complex analysis. The first step involved in developing such a computer interface begins with an AI Q&A dialog in plan speech that is typed into an interactive form. Subsequent computer processing converts plain language instructions into a sequence of solvers that are orchestrated by an uber-program compiled from the plain language description given it.
However, it turns out that plain language is too blunt an instrument from which to develop the the precise set of instructions that a computer requires. I think that the trick in developing this kind of interface is to make the input an interactive dialog, in which the computer takes the the plain language of the person requesting the computer's assistance into a precise instruction set.
Although such a plain language interface is possible to develop, doing that has become tough sledding. Until that is accomplished, Charley Epps has to rely on his girlfriend, Meta, to do the uber-programing. If you are interested in the work that is being done on this problem, follow the hyperlink to the article, PROGRAMMING IN PLAIN ENGLISH.