00100	Dear Mr. Flessati:
00200	
00300		Thank you for your letter, for  the  copy  of  the  Lighthill
00400	Report and for the information about the format of the discussion.
00500	
00600		The  line  I  intend  to  take is that Professor Lighthill is
00700	mistaken  in  his  analysis  of  artificial  intelligence  into   his
00800	categories  A,  B,  and C.  In particular, the basic research part of
00900	artificial intelligence is not  the  study  of  the  central  nervous
01000	system,  either  from the physiological or the psychological point of
01100	view, but is rather the study of intellectual mechanisms.     I  will
01200	illustrate this point with examples.
01300	
01400		It  is  not  \F1a  priori\F0 obvious that this study requires
01500	experiment but it does in order to correct errors like Lighthill's in
01600	jumping to the conclusion that the quality of a chess playing program
01700	depends mainly on the quality  of  its  evaluation  function.    This
01800	mistake  was  made  by  the  early  programmers of chess, and it took
01900	experiment to convince them that the selection of the  variations  to
02000	be  examined  is more important than the evaluation, i.e. more of the
02100	machine's errors come from failing to look at  the  right  variations
02200	than from misevaluating positions.
02300	
02400		Your  account  of  what Professor Lighthill intends to say is
02500	too sketchy to prepare to meet it on a detailed level.    However,  I
02600	will  be prepared to expound briefly any points that I plan to refute
02700	if Lighthill doesn't expound them himself.  In the main, I  think  we
02800	shall  meet  head  on,  because I will defend experimental work in AI
02900	which, according to  you,  he  will  put  most  of  his  effort  into
03000	attacking.     If he is really serious about psychoanalyzing personal
03100	motives for research in AI, I shan't defend them, because  the  whole
03200	discussion would then be very tenuous.  Instead I shall psychoanalyze
03300	the motives of physicists who write reports suggesting that the  only
03400	purpose   of   computing  is  to  aid  physicists  and  then  appoint
03500	hydrodynamicists   to   psychoanalyze   those   who   use   computers
03600	differently.
03700	
03800		In speaking, I find it is easier for the audience to keep the
03900	issues in mind if they can see slides or some other form of  display.
04000	Therefore, I will have some overhead projector slides, and there will
04100	also be paper copies suitable for direct viewing by a TV  camera.   I
04200	trust  you  will be able to arrange for their projection and for your
04300	cameraman to be able to switch  to  them  when  appropriate.   If  he
04400	goofs, you can fix it when you edit.
04500	
04600		I  am  sending  a  copy  of  this  to  Professor Lighthill at
04700	Cambridge, but in case he  is  elsewhere,  I  would  appreciate  your
04800	informing him of the line I intend to take.
04900