Software runs the world. It controls smartphones, nuclear weapons, and car engines. But there’s a global shortage of programmers. Wouldn’t it be nice if anyone could explain what they want a program to do, and a computer could translate that into lines of code?

A new artificial intelligence (AI) system called AlphaCode is bringing humanity one step closer to that vision, according to a new study. Researchers say the system—from the research lab DeepMind, a subsidiary of Alphabet (Google’s parent company)—might one day assist experienced coders, but probably cannot replace them.

“It’s very impressive, the performance they’re able to achieve on some pretty challenging problems,” says Armando Solar-Lezama, head of the computer assisted programming group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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