Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!JED@SU-AI From: JED@SU-AI@sri-unix.UUCP Newsgroups: net.ai Subject: Fifth Generation (Book Review) Message-ID: <4715@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Fri, 26-Aug-83 15:09:00 EDT Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.4715 Posted: Fri Aug 26 15:09:00 1983 Date-Received: Fri, 2-Sep-83 17:32:08 EDT Lines: 104 From: Jim Davidson [Reprinted from the SCORE BBoard.] 14 Aug 8 by Steven Schlossstein (c) 1983 Dallas Morning News (Independent Press Service) THE FIFTH GENERATION: Artificial Intelligence and Japan's Computer Challenge to the World. By Edward Feigenbaum and Pamela McCorduck (Addison-Wesley, $15.55). (Steven Schlossstein lived and worked in Japan with a major Wall Street firm for more than six years. He now runs his own Far East consulting firm in Princeton, N.J. His first novel, ''Kensei,-' which deals with the Japanese drive for industrial supremacy in the high tech sector, will be published by Congdon & Weed in October). ''Fukoku Kyohei'' was the rallying cry of Meiji Japan when that isolated island country broke out of its self-imposed cultural cocoon in 1868 to embark upon a comprehensive plan of modernization to catch up with the rest of the world. ''Rich Country, Strong Army'' is literally what is meant. Figuratively, however, it represented Japan's first experimentation with a concept called industrial policy: concentrating on the development of strategic industries - strategic whether because of their connection with military defense or because of their importance in export industries intended to compete against foreign products. Japan had to apprentice herself to the West for a while to bring it off. The military results, of course, were impressive. Japan defeated China in 1895, blew Russia out of the water in 1905, annexed Korea and Taiwan in 1911, took over Manchuria in 1931, and sat at the top of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere by 1940. This from a country previously regarded as barbarian by the rest of the world. The economic results were no less impressive. Japan quickly became the world's largest shipbuilder, replaced England as the world's leading textile manufacturer, and knocked off Germany as the premier producer of heavy industrial machinery and equipment. This from a country previously regarded as barbarian by the rest of the world. After World War II, the Ministry of Munitions was defrocked and renamed the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), but the process of strategy formulation remained the same. Only the postwar rendition was value-added, and you know what happened. Japan is now the world's No. 1 automaker, produces more steel than anyone else, manufactures over half the TV sets in the world, is the only meaningful producer of VTRs, dominates the 64K computer chip market, and leads the way in one branch of computer technology known as artificial intelligence (AI). All this from a country previously regarded as barbarbian by the rest of the world. What next for Japan? Ed Feigenbaum, who teaches computer science at Stanford and pioneered the development of AI in this country, and Pamela McCorduck, a New York-based science writer, write that Japan is trying to dominate AI research and development. AI, the fifth generation of computer technology, is to your personal computer as your personal computer is to pencil and paper. It is based on processing logic, rather than arithmetic, deals in inferences, understands language and recognizes pictures. Or will. It is still in its infancy. But not for long; last year, MITI established the Institute for New Generation Computer Technology, funded it aggressively, and put some of the country's best brains to work on AI. AI systems consist of three subsystems: a knowledge base needed for problem solving and understanding, an inference subsystem that determines what knowledge is relevant for solving the problem at hand, and an interaction subsystem that facilitates communication between the overall system and its user - between man and machine. Now America does not have a MITI, does not like industrial policy, has not created an institute to work on AI, and is not even convinced that AI is the way to go. But Feigenbaum and McCorduck argue that even if the Japanese are not successful in developing the fifth generation, the spin-off from this 10-year project will be enormous, with potentially wide applications in computer technology, telecommunications, industrial robotics, and national defense. ''The Fifth Generation'' walks you through AI, how and why Japan puts so much emphasis on the project, and how and why the Western nations have failed to respond to the challenge. National defense implications alone, the authors argue, are sufficient to justify our taking AI seriously. Smart bombs and laser weapons are but advanced wind-up toys compared with the AI arsenal of the future. The Pentagon has a little project called ARPA - Advanced Research Projects Agency - that has been supporting AI small-scale, but not with the people or funding the authors feel is meaningful. Unfortunately, ''The Fifth Generation'' suffers from some organizational defects. You don't really get into AI and how its complicated systems operate until you're almost halfway through the book. And the chapter on industrial policy - from which all technological blessings flow - is only three pages long. It's also at the back of the book instead of up front, where it belongs. But the issues are highlighted well by experts who are not only knowledgeable about AI but who are concerned about our lack of response to yet another challenge from Japan. The author's depiction of the drivenness of the Japanese is especially poignant. It all boils down to national survival. Japan no longer is in a position of apprenticeship to the West. [Begin garbage] The D B LD LEAJE OW IN A EMBARRUSSINOF STRATEGIC INDUSDRIES. EAgain1u 2, with few exceptions and shampoo, but it's not trying harder - if at all. [End garbage] mount an effective reaponse to the Japanese challenge? ''The Fifth Generation'' doesn't think so, and for compelling reasons. Give it a read. END