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Draft letter for Dr. Teller's signature



Dear ...

Prof. P.  Chandrasekaran  of  Ohio  has asked  my  assistance  in  getting
consideration  of   his  proposal   for  research   in  using   artificial
intelligence techniques  to  aid the  operator  of a  nuclear  reactor  in
deciding on actions in emergency situations.

In deciding what to  do I have consulted  with Professor John McCarthy  of
the Stanford Department of  Computer Science, who  in turn consulted  with
other workers in  the field of  artificial intelligence.  Their  consensus
was that  Professor Chandrasekaran's  proposal  was a  good one  from  the
standpoint of artificial intelligence research  and proposed to make  good
use of the techniques available in the field.

Nevertheless, their  conclusion was  that Chandrasekaran's  proposal is  a
research proposal and  that a  usable system  to aid  operators cannot  be
guaranteed in the present state of artificial intelligence although  there
is a fair probability of usable results.

Professor McCarthy also recommended that Chandrasekaran couple his "expert
system" to  a conventional  simulation  program of  the operation  of  the
reactor, so  that  the  heuristic  program could  use  the  simulation  to
determine the  consequences  of  certain events  and  actions.   Professor
Chandrasekaran has agreed that this is a good idea.

In spite of these reservations, Professor  McCarthy and I are agreed  that
the proposal is worth supporting if suitable research funds are available.
In addition to the other considerations,  it is worthwhile to attract  the
attention  of  the  artificial  intelligence  research  community  to  the
problems of making nuclear energy  safer, more useful and more  acceptable
to the public.


Dr. Chandrasekaran's  address is  Department of  Computer and  Information
Science, The Ohio State University, 2036 Neil Avenue Mall, Columbus,  Ohio
43210.  Sincerely,