Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!homxb!houxm!mhuxt!mhuxm!mhuxo!ulysses!ucbvax!MITRE.ARPA!elsaesser%mwcamis
From: elsaesser%mwcamis@MITRE.ARPA.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: Say, what ever happened to ... ICOT Prolog?????
Message-ID: <8706111231.AA18169@mitre.arpa>
Date: Thu, 11-Jun-87 08:31:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: mitre.8706111231.AA18169
Posted: Thu Jun 11 08:31:20 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 16-Jun-87 01:20:19 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The MITRE Corp., Washington, D.C.
Lines: 26
Approved: ailist@stripe.sri.com

It seems ages ago that the 5th generation project was going to
reinvent AI in a Prolog "engine" that was to do 10 gazillion "
LIPS".  Anyone know what happened?  I mean, if you can make so many
"quality" cars (sans auto transmission, useful A/C, paint that can take
rain and sun, etc.), why can't you make a computer that runs an NP-complete
applications language in real time???  Semi-seriously, what is the status
of the 5th generation project, anyone got an update?
     
chris (elsaesser%mwcamis@mitre.arpa)


  [See the June IEEE Spectrum, "Next-Generation Race Bogs Down", Karen
  Fitzgerald and Raul Wallich, pp. 28-33, for a review.  The
  Japanese effort is doing well enough in its parallel architecture
  development and is making some progress in "knowledge programming",
  but has dropped VLSI technology and made little headway in AI and
  knowledge representation.  Competitive efforts in the U.S. and
  Europe have also had the most success in hardware.  The real question
  now is whether the 5th-generation push has given Japan the kind of
  computer-science infrastructure that it needs to compete and perhaps
  pull out ahead in algorithm development.  My guess is that it has not
  (because the software part of the effort was too small).  An interesting
  sign of change, though, is the Japanese government's invitation to
  Western universities to set up branches in Japan.  I assume that
  Japanese leaders will always come from Tyodai or Kyodai, but perhaps
  computer scientists will be educated in a different tradition.  -- KIL]