I can still picture it clearly: the bottom shelf of our old bookcase, crammed with my father's dog-eared science fiction paperbacks. The spines were faded with titles like I, Robot and Childhood's End, promising worlds beyond my imagination. It was in those pages that I first encountered the idea of artificial intelligence, and it wasn't long before, without realising it, I tried to create my own.
Armed with nothing but a pencil and a school copybook, at the back of the class ignoring the teacher I set out to code my game: a fearsome alien flying saucer for a space invaders game. The goal was to unlock the secrets of programming, but the reality was... a bit disappointing :(. My alien could only zig and zag in response to the player's movements.
This is a fair representation of what that BASIC code was, this time auto generated by a very simple AI prompt, I hope you enjoy it!
That early attempt at coding as a child, sparked something in me. Like many, I became obsessed with the idea of software. It was a challenge that felt both exhilarating and impossible, and it set me on a path I'm still following today.
By reproducing this first step with a LLM prompt, I'm exploring whats now possible with this new wave of AI technology. Here is an enhanced version of the same app. It's the same simple thing as before, but whats happened is that its now easier to add features that would have been too complex for a child to even consider writing code for.
In the same way that B.A.S.I.C., enabled me to code my game where it would have been impossible for me to use Assembly Language. LLM tech enables us all in the same way, across the board.