.require "memo.pub[let,jmc]" source
.cb PREFACE


	One intelligent approach to prefaces - is to have an empty
preface.  The well prepared reader will form a good idea of the
technical program just from looking at the table of contents; together with
the names of the authors, this gives him a good idea of what happened
at the symposium.  I could try to assess the talks and direct the
reader's attention to the more interesting communications.  But I
fear this would be too subjective and unfair to the remaining authors -
all of them equally represented in this book.

	However, recalling that Spring week in Repino, a resort 20
kilometers from Leningrad on the Bay of Finland and unpopulated
at that time of year, I have come to the definite conclusion that
that scientific meeting was in its own way unique.  What circumstances
gave this symposium its special character?

	First it was not a regular IJCAI-type conference
for which there is advance preparation, taking into account previous
conferences of the series and knowing that others will follow.
The technical program was more spontaneous than preplanned; there was
neither selection of papers nor restrictions on the their subjects.
This element of randomness and improvisation
gave the meeting a more free and varied character.
The fresh audience and the absence of prehistory
encouraged the authors to not restrict themselves to presenting their
latest results, but to pay more attention to analyzing the premises
and motivation of their research.  This gave some of the presentations
greater depth and scope, much to the satisfaction of the audience.

	Of course,  it was important that the conference was an
occasion for a "meeting of East and West".  The mass media often
play up such meetings, but I must admit that this meeting did not
provide an occasion for such dramatizations.  At the same time,
the direct and friendly contacts between scientists with common
interests, recognizing their common problems and diverse approaches
to their solution - all that made the conference a kind of "festival
of thought", greatly amplifying the creative motivation of the
participants.

	On the other hand, it didn't turn out that the forum character
made the symposium superficial.  Not at all.  It can be said that
the theme of the conference was "AI at work", and this is readily
confirmed by the program.  At the same time, this obvious desire
to do "real work" in artificial intelligence forced us to restate
the question:  Has there emerged a stable paradigm for research
and development in AI?  Is there a single paradigm or several of
them - or is it possible to do successful work in AI without
conscious use of any particular paradigm?
Even though many authorities in the field were present, no-one
tried to give a final answer to these questions.  However, the
participants of the final panel discussion unanimously agreed that
AI had got its "second wind" in recent years and was again on the
upswing.

	It seems reasonable to conclude that the business-like
program combined with the atmosphere of enthusiastic exchange
of ideas thoroughly justifies optimistic expectations.

                                                             Andrei Ershov