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C00002 00002	Do you agree with the following:
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Do you agree with the following:

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∂AIL Mr. N.R. Kleinfield↓%2New York Times%1↓229 West 43d St.↓N.Y. 10036∞
Dear Mr. Kleinfield:

	This is to protest your putting words in the mouths of Marvin
Minsky and myself.  We are not complaining about the content of your
quotation which fairly represents our sentiments, but simply about
your putting quotes around words we didn't actually say.  The effect
is that we, and probably Mr. Reichelt as well, have become characters
in a drama composed by you.  It is too bad that we apparently didn't
say anything succinctly quoteworthy, but it doesn't excuse your inventing
our personalities.

	I do not use the word "preposterous" (Did you get the scientist
saying "preposterous" from %2The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes"%1?),
and Minsky doesn't
refer to "mad scientists".  Although we don't know Mr. Reichelt, most
likely he doesn't call people "buddy" -  which is somewhat obsolete as
slang except perhaps in the CB locution "good buddy".

	Actually your "preposterous" suggests that I would make public
statements based merely on my opinion that household robots are presently
infeasible.  As you must recall, the Stanford press release was issued
only after the Carnegie-Mellon students had obtained concrete evidence
that the demonstrations were faked.

	The effect is to turn all of us into stage characters, and, while I
can't see as how I have been greatly harmed by it, resent it enough so
that, should the occasion arise in the future, I will decline to be
interviewed by you again, unless you promise not to do it again.

	Incidentally, we were expecting better of the %2New York Times%1.
Surely the newspaper can afford an expedition to East Rutherford, New Jersey.

.sgn

cc: Science Editor, %2New York Times%1