How We Talk to Machines
By Autumn Ha
Staff Writer
Recently, there’s been a surge of state-of-the-art computer technology accessible at anyone’s fingertips: artificial intelligence. The AI singularity might be soon, but in the meanwhile, people are still eager to contribute and leech off its exponential growth. To get started, learning the core basics of computer science starts at its literacy; how do we talk to machines?
The foundation of all machines is in ones and zeros. In fact, if you ever take a computer science course in university, binary might be the first thing they teach you. This is because, at a physical level, binary is how computers run. However, the limitation is that it would become way too hard to understand complex programs if we’re just looking at ones and zeros. This is where programming compilers come into play.
Programming compilers are kinda like real languages. Just as human brains somehow come to translate sounds into words and meaning, compilers translate words into binary and meaning for the computer itself. In short, since computers understand the world so differently from humans, compilers translate words written in programming languages to actual computer language.
Don’t feel discouraged if that was somewhat incomprehensible. Programming is a journey that takes years to master. If you’re further interested, however, the barrier to entry is very low. Anyone with a computer or laptop can start programming to their heart’s content!