Xref: utzoo comp.society.futures:466 comp.ai:1564
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!glasgow!gilbert
From: gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures,comp.ai
Subject: Re: The future of AI [was Re: Time Magazine -- Computers of the Future]
Message-ID: <978@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Date: 11 Apr 88 13:17:40 GMT
References: <8803270154.AA08607@bu-cs.bu.edu> <962@daisy.UUCP> <5789@swan.ulowell.edu>
Reply-To: gilbert@crete.UUCP (Gilbert\ Cockton)
Organization: Comp Sci, Glasgow Univ, Scotland
Lines: 17

In article <5789@swan.ulowell.edu> sbrunnoc@eagle.UUCP (Sean Brunnock) writes:
>   Bear with me while I put this into a sociological perspective. .....
>   The information age will revolutionize agriculture and industry just as
>industry revolutionized agriculture one hundred years ago

Sociologists study the present, not the future. I presume the "Megatrends" books
cited is Toffler style futurology, and this sort of railway journey light 
reading has no connection with rigorous sociology/contemporary anthrolopology.

The only convincing statements about the future which competent sociologists
generally make are related to the likely effects of social policy.  Such 
statements are firmly rooted in a defendible analysis of the present.

This ignorance of the proper practices of historians, anthropologists,
sociologists etc. reinforces my belief that as long as AI research is
conducted in philistine technical vacuums, the whole research area
will just chase one dead end after another.