{
  "id": 17296208,
  "title": "Séance: Channeling the Ghosts of COBOL, LISP and BASIC with Open-Weight AI",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/30/seance-channeling-the-ghosts-of-cobol-lisp-and-basic-with-open-weight",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-10-30T21:58:49.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/sara_sinha_fe5b0c056dc535/seance-channeling-the-ghosts-of-cobol-lisp-and-basic-with-open-weight-ai-3fb6"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Séance is an open-source AI challenge submission that allows users to converse with the spirits of dead programming languages like COBOL, LISP, BASIC, FORTRAN, and ALGOL. Users can ask questions and receive responses from each language in its own voice, such as COBOL's all-caps bureaucracy, LISP's smugness in parentheses, and BASIC's nostalgic line-numbered whispers. Additionally, users can submit code snippets for the spirits to critique in their respective voices. The project emphasizes open innovation, allowing users to run it locally or switch to different open-weight models without relying on a single service. Séance highlights the lasting impact of these languages, which still power many systems today, and encourages users to reflect on their origins.",
  "summary": "This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 4: Ghost in the Machine What I Built Séance is a small web app where you hold a conversation with the ghosts of dead programming languages: COBOL, LISP, BASIC, FORTRAN and ALGOL . Pick a spirit and ask it anything. COBOL answers in stiff, all-caps mainframe bureaucracy. LISP is smug and speaks in parentheses. BASIC is a…",
  "key_points": [
    "Séance AI allows conversations with COBOL, LISP, BASIC, FORTRAN, and ALGOL spirits",
    "Users can ask questions and receive responses in each language's unique voice",
    "Project promotes open innovation and reflects on legacy programming languages' impact"
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}