Avery H. 2023 | BASIS Independent Silicon Valley
- Project Title: AI in Translating Esoteric Programming Languages
- BASIS Independent Advisor: Swetha Bhattacharya
- Internship Location: Augment Computing
- Onsite Mentor: Igor Ostrovsky and Evan Driscoll
Programming Languages tend to be quite homogenous in the format of their syntax, but why? Esoteric Languages are a very interesting, underexplored area of CS. The purpose of most Esoteric Programming Languages isn’t for pure functionality, but there are many different unique purposes, whether creating something for art, as a joke, or something else entirely. Through presenting this research project I will introduce others to the field so they can also gain a greater knowledge of the bounds of CS, and understand how creativity can be used to drastically change core beliefs in what a programming language even is. One Esoteric Language is Piet, which, instead of reading a program from typed text, reads commands from the pixel values in an image, challenging what a programming language can look like. In my project, I will expand on the field of Esoteric Languages by incorporating AI to understand how programs within languages like Piet emerge. Through the research I will create a novel way to generate Piet code from another Turing-complete language, namely BrainF, while, time permitting, also appearing more aesthetically pleasing than traditional converters to Piet. I plan to do this with guidance from Evan Driscoll and Igor Ostrovsky from Augment, who are experts in the field of AI. My final product will be a unique application for those interested in creativity within programming.