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From: DRogers@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Alas, I must flame...
Message-ID: <12263@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 29-Sep-83 20:58:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12263
Posted: Thu Sep 29 20:58:29 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Oct-83 03:51:15 EDT
Lines: 34

From:  David Rogers <DRogers@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>

[ I hate to flame, but here's an issue that really got to me...]

>From the call for papers for the "Artificial Intelligence and Machines":

    AUTHORS PLEASE NOTE:  A Public Release/Sensitivity Approval is necessary.
    Authors from DOD, DOD contractors, and individuals whose work is government
    funded must have their papers reviewed for public release and more
    importantly sensitivity (i.e. an operations security review for sensitive
    unclassified material) by the security office of their sponsoring agency.

  How much AI work does *NOT* fall under one of the categories "Authors from
DOD, DOD contractors, and individuals whose work is government funded" ?
I read this to mean that essentially any government involvement with
research now leaves one open to goverment "protection".

  At issue here is not the goverment duty to safeguard classified materials;
it is the intent of the government to limit distribution of non-military
basic research (alias "sensitive unclassified material"). This "we paid for
it, it's OURS (and the Russians can't have it)" mentality seems the rule now.

  But isn't science supposed to be for the benefit of all mankind,
and not just another economic bargaining chip? I cannot help but to
be chilled by this divorce of science from a higher moral outlook.
Does it sound old fashioned to believe that scientific thought is
part of a common heritage, to be used to improve the lives of all? A
far as I can see, if all countries in the world follow the lead of
the US and USSR toward scientific protectionism, we scientists will
have allowed science to abandon its primary role toward learning
about ourselves and become a mere intellectual commodity.

David Rogers
DRogers@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA