Programming Languages for AI Programing Agents (Invited Talk)

Over the past decade software development has shifted from a process centered around writing code to a process that increasingly involves composition of external packages and managing the integration of code from other team members. The next decade-plus will be defined by the shift from a process where humans are the central developers of code into one where AI agents, likely Large Language Model (LLM) based, will be the major creators of code and humans will shift to a supervisory role as curators, integrating rich framework-functionality and code developed by AI programming agents.

In this new world we must ask ourselves – are programming languages as they exist today fit for purpose and how do they evolve to meet the needs of this future programming model. This talk represents an opinionated take on the question and attempts to outline specific areas of investigation that need to be addressed by the PL community as part of this journey including:

What programming language features help/hinder AI agents when understanding and generating code?

What programming language features help/hinder human agents when working with an AI Copilot?

What programming language tools are needed to empower AI agents in creating grounded and reliable outputs?

How can intents be expressed as part of the program representation – examples, constraints, natural language, external documents?

How do we empower end-users as part of this transformation?

What programming language features are needed to support new AI driven workflows – live coding, interactive requirement gathering, AI TDD?

Effectively answering these questions plays a key role in determining if AI driven programming represents a revolution in how software is developed or is limited to being a programming productivity aid for existing development workflows. As such our community should play a central role in understanding this space and leading in the development of this technological transformation!