--- title: "OpenAI’s New Algorithm Can Turn Written Commands Into Code" description: "AI development firm OpenAI just revealed Codex, a tool that can take commands written in English and turn them into programming." date: "2021-08-10" modified: "2021-08-10" authors: - name: "Dan Robitzski" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-algorithm-written-commands-code" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "OpenAI" tags: - "artificial intelligence" - "OpenAI" - "the digest" --- # OpenAI’s New Algorithm Can Turn Written Commands Into Code ![AI development firm OpenAI just revealed Codex, a tool that can take commands written in English and turn them into programming.]() *\Image: Futurism\* ## Grunt Work OpenAI, the AI research company originally founded by Elon Musk — before he [quit in disgust ]()— just unveiled a new algorithm called Codex that can interpret commands written in English and turn them into [chunks of usable code](). Codex can reportedly take instructions ­— either as a way to simplify programming work for experienced coders or as a tool to help beginners learn — and turn it into tangible software like rudimentary games or websites. For example, *[The Verge ]()*[reports]() that a user could describe the basic appearance or functionality of a website they want to build, listing things like the placement of menus or text boxes in everyday English, and Codex would whip up a simple design based on how it interpreted the request. ## AI Assistant The idea isn't to necessarily put AI in charge of programming. Instead, Codex essentially acts like a programmer's assistant or deputy that takes conceptual ideas and punches out code in an attempt to create them. "We see this as a tool to multiply programmers," OpenAI CTO and co-founder Greg Brockman told *The Verge*. "Programming has two parts to it: you have 'think hard about a problem and try to understand it,' and 'map those small pieces to existing code, whether it's a library, a function, or an API.'" It's that second part, Brockman added, that humans find monotonous but at which Codex excels: "It takes people who are already programmers and removes the drudge work." ## Open Source Codex is built on GPT-3, OpenAI's notorious [text-generating algorithm]() that was trained on huge chunks of the written internet. But the extra sourcing for Codex may run afoul of the existing open-source programming community, *The Verge* reports. That's because Codex was built on extra data scraped from open-source code repositories that programmers compiled in order to share with the world. Technically, from a generous standpoint, Codex could be seen as a more efficient way of doing just that, and OpenAI told *The Verge* that it's not violating any copyright laws. But by building such a powerful tool on the backs of volunteers, OpenAI is opening itself to criticism that it's profiting from the free labor of a collaborative community, so it will be interesting to see how programmers actually respond to the new tool. **READ MORE:** [OpenAI can translate English into code with its new machine learning software Codex]() \[*The Verge*\] **More on programmer AI:** *[The Military Just Created An AI That Learned How To Program Software]()* ## Author Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California. ### Author social links [Twitter]()