From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!csd.unb.ca!morgan.ucs.mun.ca!nstn.ns.ca!news.cs.indiana.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!yale.edu!jvnc.net!nuscc!hilbert!smoliar Thu Apr 30 15:23:09 EDT 1992
Article 5306 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!csd.unb.ca!morgan.ucs.mun.ca!nstn.ns.ca!news.cs.indiana.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!yale.edu!jvnc.net!nuscc!hilbert!smoliar
>From: smoliar@hilbert.iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Amusing Quotation
Message-ID: <1992Apr28.131439.29996@nuscc.nus.sg>
Date: 28 Apr 92 13:14:39 GMT
Article-I.D.: nuscc.1992Apr28.131439.29996
References: <1992Apr23.175901.1061@cs.ucf.edu>
Sender: usenet@nuscc.nus.sg
Reply-To: smoliar@iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar)
Organization: Institute of Systems Science, NUS, Singapore
Lines: 27

In article <1992Apr23.175901.1061@cs.ucf.edu> clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas
Clarke) writes:
>I came across the following in _Discrete thoughts : essays on mathematics,  
>science, and philosophy_ by Mark Kac,Gian-Carlo Rota, and Jacob T. Schwartz.  
>[Boston :Birkhauser, 1986] The quotations are from Rota (a combinatorist).
>
>  The computer is just an instrument for doing faster what we already know how
>to do slower.  All pretension to computer intelligence and paradise-tomorrow  
>promise should be toned down before the public turns away in disgust.  And if 
>that should happen, our civilization might not survive.(p 263)
>   
I have had frequent discussions with Rota about artificial intelligence.
Sometimes I can score points by indicating errors of fact (usually based
on lack of familiarity with the current literature);  but sometimes he has
a point.  Given the date of publication, a bit of historical perspective would
indicate that this passage may have been written at a time when up-and-coming
expert systems shops were the darlings of venture capitalists.  Under the
circumstances, I am not sure his cautionary remark is that far out of line.
Most of those fledgling enterprises made all sorts of absurd claims;  and once
the public saw through those claims, they DID turn away in disgust.  This made
life all the more unpleasant for those of us who were trying to grapple with
more substantive research questions.
-- 
Stephen W. Smoliar; Institute of Systems Science
National University of Singapore; Heng Mui Keng Terrace
Kent Ridge, SINGAPORE 0511
Internet:  smoliar@iss.nus.sg


