in 2016, mcgill university linguistics professor, jessica coon, spoke with business insider about how 2016 sci-fi blockbuster, "arrival", properly portrayed how humans might actually communicate with aliens. to create this language, film producers consulted with wolfram research founder and ceo, stephen wolfram - creator of the computer programming language known as the wolfram language - and his son, christopher. together, they helped analyze approximately 100 logograms that ultimately served as the basis for the alien language utilized throughout the film. this work, along with many other thoughts with regard to artificial intelligence communication has been documented in an interview published by space.com. during production, wolfram's personal copy of "lincos: design of a language for cosmic intercourse" was also on set.