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From: TREITEL@SUMEX-AIM@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: Fifth Generation (Book Review)
Message-ID: <4716@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Aug-83 18:40:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.4716
Posted: Fri Aug 26 18:40:16 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Sep-83 17:35:07 EDT
Lines: 23

From:  Richard Treitel <TREITEL@SUMEX-AIM>

                 [Reprinted from the SCORE BBoard.]

Anybody who says the Japanese are *leading* in "one branch of computer
technology known as artificial intelligence" is out to lunch.  And by
what standards is DARPA describable as small?  And what is all this
BirdSong about other countries failing to "respond to the challenge"?
Hasn't this turkey read the Alvey report?  Hasn't he noticed France's
vigorous encouragement of their domestic computer industry?  Who in
America is not "convinced that AI is the way to go" (this was true of
the leadership in Britain until the Alvey report came out, I admit)
and what are they doing to hinder AI work?  Does he think 64k RAMs are
the only things that go into computers?  Does he, incidentally, know
that AI has had plenty of pioneers outside of the HPP?

More to the point, most of you know about the wildly over-optimistic
promises that were made in the 60's on behalf of AI, and what happened
in their wake.  Whipping up public hysteria is a dangerous game,
especially when neither John Q. Public nor Malcolm Forbes himself can
do very much about the 5GC project, except put pressure on the local
school board to teach the kids some math and science.
                                                        - Richard