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C00002 00002 It seems to me that an argument about what practical contributions
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It seems to me that an argument about what practical contributions
AI has made is pointless. AI is now in a period of increased
interest. The next major evaluation point is a few years away,
and what people think of it then will depend on what has happened
in the meantime - not on what arguments have or have not been
accepted for inclusion in some report.
I think you should not retreat from the point that industry has
made few contributions to AI. However, it might be worthwhile to
express some reserve about whether the current AI boom in industry
will be fruitful for industry.
However, you haven't been extreme.
As for McIlroy's preference for
PDP-11s over PDP-10s, there is a substantial probability that both
he and we will be using VAXen almost exclusively in five years.
Modifying the statement about Government assistance in language
maintenance to add the phrase "on a variety of computers" might
soothe him.
The word is "bellwether" not "bellweather".
I don't think too much of the "weak vs. strong methods" dichotomy,
because a an algorithm like tree search may require heuristics like
alpha-beta to reduce the combinatorial explosion.
How about adding a sentence
"Another aspect of AI research is determining the facts about the
common sense world of causality, time, space and knowledge and
expressing them in a form usable by a computer program."?
In discussing strengths and weaknesses, it might be well to say something
about intellectual strengths and weaknesses as well as institutional.
For example, I think there isn't enough work in theory.
In general, I approve of your report and am willing to be counted
a co-author if you really think it worthwhile.