∂27-AUG-75  0517		network site ISI
 Date: 27 AUG 1975 0517-PDT
 From: LICKLIDER at USC-ISI
 Subject: Reaction Cubed
 To:   McCarthy at SU-AI
 cc:   Licklider
 
 	By all means let's talk on the phone.
 
 	The problem is not whether DoD-supported AI should have a
 basic research core.  It is whether some of the support of basic AI
 research (all the support was for basic research, in the
 view of Lukasik and Heilmeier) should be diverted to make room for
 efforts in application and technology transfer.  Your putting it
 as you did (defending the retention of SOME basic research) just
 underscores the fact that the administrators and the researchers see
 things in such different ways that they are extremely difficult to
 mediate.
 
 	As for the importance of formal reasoning:  There is no question
 that it is important for the development of AI broadly.  The question
 is whether a large amount of it is what is needed to solve the
 DoD problems that AI has some chance of solving in the near term.  The
 whole situation is to be understood in terms of DoD's wanting to
 assess the capability oo the field to solve some of DoD's problems now.
 Almost everyone who has thought about the matter understands that it
 is penny-wise but pound-foolish to go overboard on
 pressing for immediate or near-term applications, that the real 
 importance of AI to DoD lies in the longer term possibility that ther
 may in due course be an advance in thinking to match the
 a weapons delivery and in explosive power.  But the pressure for
 near term applications is nevertheless a fact.    Not for 100 percent shift to
 applications, but for 30-40 percent.
 
 	Finally (for this note), this is a bad time for you to be
 thinking (or talking) about ceasing to administer the lab.  The
 reaction would be, indeed, something like "if the leaders of the field
 don't have any more committment to it than that, it is too risky for
 DoD to put so much money into".
 
 	My own assessment of the situation is that now is a time in 
 hry that needs the best contributions of a lot of people, including
 you, and that the situation might be a lot stronger in a couple of
 years.  The main chance is to bring NSF into the support of AI in a
 good way.  Please do not mess up the ARPA community just as we get
 started on fashioning some kind of arrangement with NSF.  But let us
 talk on the phone.
 
 				Regards
 
 				Lick
 -------

∂26-AUG-75  2300		PAP,SUZ
 	I AM SORRY THAT I COULD NOT SEE YOU AT THE LAB SO THAT I CAN
 SAY GOOD BY TO YOU.  I WILL LEAVE FOR CARNEGIE TOMORROW.  I APPRECIATE
 YOUR SUPPORT AND HELP DURING THREE YEARS OF STAY AT STANFORD.  I WILL
 COME BACK HERE TIME TO TIME, BUT BEST WISHES.         NORI