This video discussed the two categories of programming languages: low level languages (machine language and assembly language) and high level languages (such as C, C++, Java, Python, Perl, PHP, and Ruby). Low level languages are machine-oriented and require extensive knowledge of the system architecture and specifications of the CPU in order to write programs, while high level languages are more human-readable and require translation into machine code before they can be executed. The speaker also discussed the differences between compilers and interpreters, and the advantages and disadvantages of high level languages.