The first programs were written in binary/hexadecimal, and only later did we invent coding languages to convert between human readable code and binary machine code.
So why can’t we just do the same thing in reverse? I hear a lot about devices from audio streaming to footware rendered useless by abandonware. Couldn’t a very smart person (or AI) just take the existing program and turn it into code?
Imagine being presented with an aircraft. You bloody well know what it does and you get permission to disassemble the whole thing to your heart’s content. How big of a task do you think it’d still be to be able to work out how the winged metal tube works and why it does what it does when it does it?
Exactly.