Lisp used to be a very popular language for AI programming. Not because it had features that were specific to AI, but because it was general. Lisp was based on more abstract abstractions, making it easy to choose whichever special cases were most useful to you. Lisp is also more mathematical than most programming languages.
A programming language that lets you define your own functions is more powerful than one that just gives you a fixed list of predefined functions. In a world where no programming language let you define your own functions, and a special purpose chess language has predefined chess functions. Trying to predefine AI related functions to make an “AI programming language” would be hard because you wouldn’t know what to write. Noticing that on many new kinds of software project, being able to define your own functions might be useful, I would consider useful.
The goal isn’t a language specialized to AI, its one that can easily be specialized in that direction. A language closer to “executable mathematics”.
Lisp used to be a very popular language for AI programming. Not because it had features that were specific to AI, but because it was general. Lisp was based on more abstract abstractions, making it easy to choose whichever special cases were most useful to you. Lisp is also more mathematical than most programming languages.
A programming language that lets you define your own functions is more powerful than one that just gives you a fixed list of predefined functions. In a world where no programming language let you define your own functions, and a special purpose chess language has predefined chess functions. Trying to predefine AI related functions to make an “AI programming language” would be hard because you wouldn’t know what to write. Noticing that on many new kinds of software project, being able to define your own functions might be useful, I would consider useful.
The goal isn’t a language specialized to AI, its one that can easily be specialized in that direction. A language closer to “executable mathematics”.