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∂CSL Professor Gene Golub↓Computer Science Department∞

Dear Gene:

	This is to add my recommendation to those for Mike Genesereth.
I would have written earlier if asked, but frankly I didn't think that
there could be any question of his appointment at the assistant
professor level, since I think he is the most promising AI
appointment we have made in a long time.

	My reason for saying this is that I believe he is working
on precisely the problem in AI that I think has the greatest
potential for a major breakthrough.  This is the representation
of information about situations and goals in predicate logic
coupled with the use of predicate logic to express the statements
that control the search for a solution to the problem.

	This is a tough problem, and he may not succeed.  However,
it is the fundamental problem that almost all other researchers
are evading.  Stanford is in the fortunate position of getting
an almost free ride.  If he succeeds we win big.  If he doesn't
succeed we may have a hard time making up our minds when a tenure
decision has to be made if the byproducts are at all interesting.

	To make explicit comparisons, I rate Genesereth's chance
of making a major breakthrough as better than that of Jerry Feldman,
Cordell Green or Raj Reddy - compared as of similar stages in their
careers.  Our other candidate for a major breakthrough in AI is
Lenat, but my estimates of what is likely to succeed would put
Genesereth ahead of him.

	I also consider Genesereth to have the personal qualities
of responsibility, intelligence and co-operativeness required for
success in an academic environment, and I see no important
weaknesses.

	I have not had much interaction with Mike except for some
discussions about non-monotonic reasoning.  When I get circumscription
into good intellectual shape, then I may be pressing him to put
some of the formalism into his system MRS.

.reg