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%2The Fifth Generation - Artificial Intelligence and Japan's Computer
Challenge to the World%1 - by Edward Feigenbaum and Pamela McCorduck,
Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.
.double space

.<<fifth[e83,jmc]		Review of Feigenbaum and McCorduck - for Reason
.
.from 1983 June 27 notebook, p. 113>>

	Japan has replaced the Soviet Union as the world's second place
industrial power.  (Look at the globe and be impressed).  However,
many people, Japanese included, consider that this has relied too much
on imported science and technology - too much for the respect of the
rest of the world, too much for Japanese self respect, and too much
for the technological independence needed for Japan to
continue to advance at previous rates.  The Fifth Generation  computer project
is one Japanese attempt to break out of the habit of copying
and generate Japan's own share of scientific and technological innovations.

	The idea is that the 1990s should see a new "fifth" generation of
computers based on "knowledge information processing" rather than "data
processing".  "Knowledge information processing" is a vague term that
promises important advances in the direction of artificial intelligence
but is non-committal about specific performance.
The present book describes this project, predicts substantial success
in meeting its goals and argues that the U.S. will fall behind in computing
unless we make a similar coherent effort.

	The Fifth Generation Project (ICOT) is the idea of Kazuhiro Fuchi
of the Japanese government's Electro-Technical Laboratory -
ICOT, while supported by industry and government, is an independent institution.
  Fuchi has borrowed
about forty engineers and computer scientists, all under 35, for periods
of three years from the leading Japanese computer companies.  Thus the
organization and management of the project is as innovative as one could
ask.  With only forty people, the project is so far a tiny part of the total
Japanese computer effort.  It is scheduled to grow in subsequent phases.

	From its beginning ICOT has been hospitable
to foreign computer scientists.  It has held open conferences in English,
publishes a journal in English and welcomes scientific visitors.

	The project is planned to
take about ten years.  They will design computers based on "logic
programming", an invention of
Alain Colmerauer of the University of Marseilles in France and
Robert Kowalski of Imperial College in London, and implemented in a
computer programming language called Prolog.
They want to use additional ideas of "dataflow" developed at M.I.T.
and to make highly parallel machines.  Some Japanese university
scientists consider that the project still has too much tendency to look
to the West for scientific ideas.

	Making parallel machines based on logic programming is a
straightforward engineering task, and there is little doubt that
this part of the project will succeed.  The grander goal of shifting
the center of gravity of computer use to the intelligent processing
of knowledge is more doubtful as a ten year effort.  The level of intelligence to be
achieved is ill-defined.  The applications are also ill-defined.
Some of the goals, such as common sense knowledge and reasoning
ability require fundamental scientific discoveries which cannot
be scheduled in advance.

	My own scientific field is making computer programs with common sense,
and when I visited ICOT, I asked who was working on the problem.
It was disappointing to learn that the answer was "no-one".  This
is a subject to which the Japanese have made few contributions,
and it probably isn't suited to people borrowed from computer
companies for three years.  Therefore, I can't be optimistic
that this important part of the project goals will be achieved
in the time set.  Of course, any progress is likely to be very
important.
Moreover, this project is only a small part of Japan's computer
research and development.  Their other work is also very competitive.

	The Fifth Generation Project was announced at a time
when the Western industrial countries were ready for another
bout of viewing with alarm; the journalists have tired of
the "energy crisis" - not that it has been solved.  Even apart
from the recession, industrial productivity has stagnated; it has
actually declined in industries heavily affected by environmental
and safety innovations.  Meanwhile Japan has taken the
lead in automobile production and in some other industries.

	At the same time, artificial intelligence research was
getting a new round of publicity which seems to go in a seven
year cycle.  For a while every editor wants a story on AI and
the free lancers oblige, and then suddenly the editors get
tired of it.  This round of publicity
has more new facts behind it than before, because expert systems
are beginning to achieve practical results, i.e. results that
companies will pay money for.

	Therefore, the Fifth Generation Project has received
enormous publicity, and Western computer scientists have taken
it as an occasion for spurring their colleagues and their governments.
Apocalyptic language is used that suggests that there is a battle
to the death - only one computer industry can survive, theirs or
ours.  Either we solve all the problems of artificial intelligence
right away or they walk all over us.

	Edward Feigenbaum is the leader of one of the major groups
that has achieved these results with programs applicable to
chemistry and medicine.  He is also one of the American computer
scientists with extensive Japanese contacts and extensive
interaction with the Fifth Generation Project.

	Pamela McCorduck is a science writer with a previous book
%2Machines Who Think%1 about the history of artificial intelligence research.

	Feigenbaum and McCorduck make two main points.

	First, knowledge engineering will dominate computing
by the 1990s.

	Second, America is in deep trouble if we don't organize
a systematic effort to compete with the Japanese in this area.

	I agree with them that knowledge engineering will increase
in importance, but I think that many of its goals will require
fundamental scientific advances; these cannot be scheduled to a fixed
time frame.  What's worse, even in the United States and Britain, the
hope of quick applications has lured too many students away from
basic research.  I also agree that our industrial system has serious
weaknesses some of which the Japanese have avoided.  If we were to
match their forty engineer project according to output of our educational
system, our project would have twenty engineers and twenty lawyers.

	The authors are properly cautious about what kind of an American
project is called for.  It simply cannot be an Apollo-style project,
because that depended on having a rather precise plan in the beginning
that could see all the way to the end and did not depend on new scientific
discoveries.
Activities that were part of the plan were pushed, and everything that
was not part of it was ruthlessly trimmed.  This would be disastrous
when we cannot predict what research will be relevant to the goal.

	My own view is rather conventional.  We will make the most progress
if there is money to support unsolicited proposals, i.e. where the
researcher proposes goals and the funders decide whether he and
his project are better than his competition.  This is because in this field
new ideas are more decisive than systematic work on existing ideas.
.<<Notes:
.
.It isn't a struggle to the death.
.
.50 engineers and 50 lawyers
.
.Sato says that ICOT is still too foreign oriented
.
.Koichi Furukawa
.
.It is a journalistic convention that in order to hold a reader's attention,
.it is best to th threaten him with death if he doesn't pay attention.
.
.What has all this too do with the United States?  Some write as if
.the US and Japan were in a struggle that only one can survive.>>