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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE LABORATORY\←L\-R\/'7;\+R\→.\→S   Telephone:
COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT\←S\→.415-497-4430
\F0\C15 November 1974

To:       Bob Street
          School of Engineering

From:     John McCarthy
          Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
          Computer Science Department

Subject:  Research and Instruction Subcommittee



\JJust a note to explain why I have declined to continue as a member
of the Research and Instruction Subcommittee:
even though you "value my input":

I have been a member of that subcommittee for two years and have
done more work than any other member in preparing proposals for
meeting Stanford's computer needs.  The discussions in that subcommittee
and to a lesser extent in the main committee have been based on
proposals I have made.  However, the main committee and the subcommittee
have made no progress at all towards getting Stanford high quality
interactive computer facilities, and no progress towards freeing
computer funds from the SCIP monopoly.  I consider that I have not
been proposed for membership on the main committee, because the issues
I have raised are considered disruptive rather than helpful.  This being
the case, I regard your statement that my input is wanted as ill-considered
at best and insincere at worst.

If the funding situation were better, there might be some prospect of
getting good interactive computing facilities apart from SCIP without
taking money away from SCIP.  However, SCIP will fight hard to preserve
its 296 employees (1/3 the size of the Stanford faculty).  I think
they will succeed in avoiding the 15% cut in faculty positions that
the Computer Science Department has had to take.

The essence of the SCIP problem is its dominance by administrative
computing.  I have given details of this to Dick Atkinson who wanted it
for the Budget Committee, but here is one fact for you to chew on that
came out in a session of the external Computer Advisory Committee.
(Two years of membership in the subcommittee failed to elicit the fact.)
SCIP's
60 (sixty!) system programmers are charged to facilities in proportion
to income (the 67 provides $2.6 million out of $4.4 million), but they
spend almost all their effort on the 158 in Encina.  This is part of
the reason that Stanford users pay ten times as much as Berkeley users
for compute cycles on a completely depreciated machine.
You see that the merger of all campus facilities into one organization
has more than mere administrative convenience.

Conceivably the Budget Committee may do something about SCIP in order
to avoid losing so many professorial positions, but I rather imagine
that they will find SCIP to complicated and too slippery
for their attention span and will not be able to figure out any specific
cuts to recommend and will not have the self-confidence to fight for
across-the-board cuts.  Unfortunately, your committee also doesn't have
the required attention span or confidence since you would have to
quarrel with the famous committee of vice-presidents.

I enclose for your amusement two letters.  Note the date on the first.\.