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"Survival and prosperity - How should computers help us?"

with Severo Ornstein and Terry Winograd

Points:

1. We have survived for 39 years; so it is prudent not to make drastic
changes.  There is always someone saying we must take desperate measures,
but ... .

2. The only thing that may have changed recently is the balance of
nuclear and conventional power.  If an imbalance has appeared, then
it is probably prudent to rectify it.

3. The "strategic computing initiative" clearly has, in the minds
of its Congressional supporters and in the minds of the DoD
people who put together a package that would get Congressional
support, two purposes.  The first is the straightforward defense
research support.  Many defense plans depend heavily on computing,
and we can save a lot of money and social turmoil if we can
maintain our technological lead over the Soviet Union in as
many areas as possible.  We have no draft at present, we pay
our military.  They have three years of essentially unpaid
military service, spend a large part of their GNP on the military.

While this is its main justification, it seems likely that
the Strategic Computing Initiative was partly shaped by
news of the Japanese Fifth Generation Project and general
competitiveness with regard to Japan.

4. My own problems with the Strategic Computing Initiative
stem from its focus on hardware and short term applications.  My opinion 
is that progress in AI, including AI applicable to defense,
will be faster if there is more emphasis on basic research.
This opinion is based on a belief that the currently available
expert system technology is inadequate to achieve many of the
goals that are currently aspired to.  Moreover, the problems
are fundamental and not to be solved by mere manpower.  However,
I cannot put the fault mainly on Congress and DoD.  The mistaken
overemphasis on short term goals infects computer scientists
as well.

5. Reagan was correct when he referred to the Soviet Union as
an evil empire.  Fortunately, he seems to be capable, unlike
some people, of keeping at least two ideas in mind at once.
While we should not forget that the Soviet Union is an evil
empire, he also emphasizes that we need to negotiate with it
and reduce the probability of war.  Maybe we can even negotiate
agreements that will reduce our and their expenditures on
armaments.  Maybe we can even keep military service voluntary.

6. I have strong reservations about the "peace movement" and
I may as well state them.

	a. Their successes have led to enormous tragedy.  In
Indochina, more people have died since the communist victory
than died in the previous 30 years of war.

	b. When the communists won, almost all Vietnamese hoped 
the could live with it.  It was two years before desperation
with communist rule reached the point that people accepted
extremely high risks of death in order to try to escape.

	c. The peace movement is continuous between people
who support certain U.S. defense measures and the official
Soviet "peace movement" that "supports the peace loving
policy of the Central Committee of the Soviet Union".  It
seems very important to the peace movement that there be
no breaks in this continuity.  Therefore, it always turns out
that the U.S. Government is the enemy and the Soviet Government
is considered to have its bad aspects perhaps, but its
demands should be conceded.

	d. An important consequence of the continuity is that
when the Soviet Union launches a campaign against some Western
defense measure, e.g. the response to the SS-20, it can count
on activating campaigns among people who do not regard themselves
at all as its supporters.