A 25-Year Odyssey in AI/ML: From Games to Program Synthesis

This post recounts a 25-year journey in AI/ML. It begins with simple games in VB6, progressing to using state machines and higher-order functions to enhance game dynamics. Graduate studies introduced first-order logic, support vector machines, and neural networks, applied to projects like low-bandwidth video chat and code editor log analysis. As a professor, the author focused on intelligent developer tools, exploring predictive models to identify and correct programmer misconceptions. His work at Microsoft's program synthesis team involved LLMs to improve code assistance. The author emphasizes the importance of thoughtful AI application, prioritizing clear user problems and avoiding over-reliance on LLMs.